Conversation-based messaging method and system

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure describes conversation-based messaging techniques. The techniques comprise generating a thread identifier (ID) corresponding to a new conversation based on receiving a user input indicative of starting the new conversation, wherein the user input is received from a user via a predetermined interface element on a user interface; displaying a window overlaid on the user interface in response to receiving the user input via the predetermined interface element, wherein the window comprises a plurality of representative elements corresponding to a plurality of types of conversation attribute; and creating one or more attributes of the new conversation based at least in part on selecting one or more representative elements among the plurality of representative elements, wherein the creating one or more attributes of the new conversation further comprises associating the one or more attributes with the thread ID of the first conversation.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 16/939,491, filed on Jul. 27, 2020, the disclosure of which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Communication in the workplace and social circles is increasingly beingconducted using Internet-based tools. The Internet-based tools may beany software or platform. Conventional communication tools, such asemail, may facilitate internal and external communications. However,conventional communication tools may not fulfil needs of users due tovarious limitations. As communication devices become more sophisticated,people continue to discover new tools to improve communicationefficiency and effectiveness.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following detailed description may be better understood when read inconjunction with the appended drawings. For the purposes ofillustration, there are shown in the drawings example embodiments ofvarious aspects of the disclosure; however, the invention is not limitedto the specific methods and instrumentalities disclosed.

FIG. 1 shows example cloud computing network on which a messagingservice may run.

FIG. 2 shows an example messaging system in accordance with the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3 shows an example messaging technique, which may be performed by amessaging service and a messaging application/service.

FIG. 4 shows an example messaging technique, which may be performed by amessaging service and a messaging application/service.

FIG. 5 shows an example data model that may be used in accordance withthe present disclosure.

FIG. 6 shows an example process, which may be performed by a messagingservice in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 shows another example process, which may be performed by amessaging service in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 shows an example messaging technique, which may be performed by achat service and a push service of a messaging service.

FIG. 9 shows an example user interface of a messaging applicationincluding a conversation.

FIG. 10 shows an example user interface of a messaging applicationincluding a conversation.

FIG. 11 shows an example technique for adding a topic to a conversation.

FIG. 12 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich a topic tag may be added to a conversation.

FIG. 13 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich conversations may be sorted by topic tags.

FIG. 14 shows an example technique for creating a group and invitingmembers.

FIG. 15 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich a new group may be created.

FIG. 16 shows a group view in a user interface of a messagingapplication in which users in a group may be displayed.

FIG. 17 shows an example technique for adding new member to an existinggroup.

FIG. 18 shows an example technique for assigning and managing tasksusing a messaging service.

FIG. 19 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich a reminder date may be scheduled.

FIG. 20 shows an example technique for integrating an email service anda messaging service.

FIG. 21 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich an email address may be added to a conversation.

FIG. 22 shows an example of an email message received at an emailaddress and sent from a messaging service.

FIG. 23 shows an example user interface of a messaging application inwhich a message sent from an email address may be displayed in acorresponding conversation.

FIG. 24 shows an example process, which may be performed by a messagingapplication in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 25 shows an example user interface of a messaging application in inaccordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 26 shows another example process, which may be performed by amessaging application in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 27 shows an example user interface of a messaging application forcreating a new conversation in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 28 shows another example user interface of a messaging applicationfor creating a new conversation in accordance with the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 29 shows an example process, which may be performed by a messagingapplication in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 30 shows an example user interface of a messaging application thatis generated based on attributes of conversations and by which a usermay provide input to reorganize the conversations.

FIG. 31 shows another example user interface of a messaging applicationin which a two-dimensional representation is overlaid on another userinterface.

FIG. 32 shows a further example user interface of a messagingapplication in which the conversations are filtered in response to aselection of an intersection in a two-dimensional representation.

FIG. 33 shows an example computing device which may be used to performany of the techniques disclosed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows example components of a cloud computing system 100. By wayof example and without limitation, cloud computing system 100 may beused to perform aspects of the disclosed subject matter. Cloud-basedcomputing generally refers to networked computer architectures whereapplication execution, service provision, and data storage may bedivided, to some extent, between clients and cloud computing devices.The “cloud” may refer to a service or a group of services accessibleover a network, e.g., the Internet, by clients, server devices, and byother cloud computing systems, for example.

In one example, multiple computing devices connected to the cloud mayaccess and use a common pool of computing power, services, applications,storage, and files. Thus, cloud computing enables a shared pool ofconfigurable computing resources, e.g., networks, servers, storage,applications, and services, that may be provisioned and released withminimal management effort or interaction by the cloud service provider.

As an example, a cloud-based application may store copies of data and/orexecutable program code in the cloud computing system, while allowingclient devices to download at least some of this data and program codeas needed for execution at the client devices. In some examples,downloaded data and program code may be tailored to the capabilities ofspecific client devices, e.g., a personal computer, tablet computer,mobile phone, and/or smartphone, accessing the cloud-based application.Additionally, dividing application execution and storage between clientdevices and the cloud computing system allows more processing to beperformed by the cloud computing system, thereby taking advantage of thecloud computing system's processing power and capability, for example.

Cloud-based computing can also refer to distributed computingarchitectures where data and program code for cloud-based applicationsare shared between one or more client devices and/or cloud computingdevices on a near real-time basis. Portions of this data and programcode may be dynamically delivered, as needed or otherwise, to variousclients accessing the cloud-based application. Details of thecloud-based computing architecture may be largely transparent to usersof client devices. By way of example and without limitation, a PC userdevice accessing a cloud-based application may not be aware that the PCdownloads program logic and/or data from the cloud computing system, orthat the PC offloads processing or storage functions to the cloudcomputing system, for example.

In FIG. 1 , cloud computing system 100 includes one or more cloudservices 104, one or more cloud platforms 106, cloud infrastructurecomponents 108, and cloud knowledge bases 110. Cloud computing system100 may include more of fewer components, and each of cloud services104, cloud platforms 106, cloud infrastructure components 108, and cloudknowledge bases 110 may include multiple computing and storage elementsas well. Thus, one or more of the described functions of cloud computingsystem 100 may be divided into additional functional or physicalcomponents, or combined into fewer functional or physical components. Insome further examples, additional functional and/or physical componentsmay be added to the examples shown in FIG. 1 . Delivery of cloudcomputing based services may involve multiple cloud componentscommunicating with each other over application programming interfaces,such as web services and multi-tier architectures, for example.

Example cloud computing system 100 shown in FIG. 1 is a networkedcomputing architecture. Cloud services 104 may represent queues forhandling requests from client devices. Cloud platforms 106 may includeclient-interface frontends for cloud computing system 100, such asclient-interface frontends of a messaging service. Cloud platforms 106may be coupled to cloud services 104 to perform functions forinteracting with client devices. Cloud infrastructure 108 may includeservice, billing, and other operational and infrastructure components ofcloud computing system 100. Cloud knowledge bases 110 are configured tostore data for use by cloud computing system 100, and thus, cloudknowledge bases 110 may be accessed by any of cloud services 104, cloudplatforms 106, and/or cloud infrastructure components 108.

Many different types of client devices, such as devices of users of themessaging service, may be configured to communicate with components ofcloud computing system 100 for the purpose of accessing data andexecuting applications provided by cloud computing system 100. Forexample, a computer 112, a mobile device 114, and a host 116 are shownas examples of the types of client devices that may be configured tocommunicate with cloud computing system 100. Of course, more or fewerclient devices may communicate with cloud computing system 100. Inaddition, other types of client devices may also be configured tocommunicate with cloud computing system 100 as well.

Computer 112 shown in FIG. 1 may be any type of computing device, e.g.,PC, laptop computer, tablet computer, etc., and mobile device 114 may beany type of mobile computing device, e.g., laptop, smartphone, mobiletelephone, cellular telephone, tablet computer, etc., configured totransmit and/or receive data to and/or from cloud computing system 100.Similarly, host 116 may be any type of computing device with atransmitter/receiver including a laptop computer, a mobile telephone, asmartphone, a tablet computer etc., which is configured totransmit/receive data to/from cloud computing system 100.

In FIG. 1 , communication links between client devices and cloud 100 mayinclude wired connections, such as a serial or parallel bus, Ethernet,optical connections, or other type of wired connection. Communicationlinks may also be wireless links, such as Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 (IEEE802.11 may refer to IEEE 802.11-2007, IEEE 802.11n-2009, or any otherIEEE 802.11 revision), CDMA, 3G, GSM, WiMAX, or other wireless baseddata communication links.

In other examples, the client devices may be configured to communicatewith cloud computing system 100 via wireless access points. Accesspoints may take various forms. For example, an access point may take theform of a wireless access point (WAP) or wireless router. As anotherexample, if a client device connects using a cellular air-interfaceprotocol, such as CDMA, GSM, 3G, or 4G, an access point may be a basestation in a cellular network that provides Internet connectivity viathe cellular network.

As such, the client devices may include a wired or wireless networkinterface through which the client devices may connect to cloudcomputing system 100 directly or via access points. As an example, theclient devices may be configured to use one or more protocols such as802.11, 802.16 (WiMAX), LTE, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, EV-DO, and/or HSPDA, amongothers. Furthermore, the client devices may be configured to usemultiple wired and/or wireless protocols, such as “3G” or “4G” dataconnectivity using a cellular communication protocol, e.g., CDMA, GSM,or WiMAX, as well as for “WiFi” connectivity using 802.11. Other typesof communications interfaces and protocols could be used as well.

FIG. 2 shows an example messaging service 220 for carrying out thedisclosed techniques. By way of example and without limitation, themessaging service 220 may run on the cloud network 100 in FIG. 1 . Themessaging service 220 may include a combination of cloud network devicesand local devices. The messaging service 220 may include a chat service222. The chat service 222 may be a device and/or a program running on adevice of the messaging service 220.

The chat service 222 may be configured to receive inputs from users 210.The users 210 may registered as users of the messaging service 220 toexchange messages with each other within the messaging service 220. Theusers 210 may be users of a messaging application 240 operating on userdevices 242. The user inputs may include requests to startconversations. A conversation may be initiated by selecting a “StartConversation” icon in a User Interface (UI) of the messaging application240 operating on any user device 242. A conversation may be initiated bya creator user without any other participants to the conversation havingbeen identified. Participants of a conversation comprise any entitieswho are allowed to participant in the conversion in any manner. Forinstance, the participants of the conversation may be a creator user, agroup that is invited to join the conversation, a assignor user who canassign a task to another participant (assignee user), the assignee user,an email participant that is invited to the conversation, and so on.

The chat service 222 may generate and/or manage the conversations. Forinstance, the chat service 222 may categorize the conversations. Thechat service 222 may store the conversations, any associations with theconversation, and/or conversation metadata in one or more databases 260,such as a conversation database 230, a topic database 236, a groupdatabase 232, a user database 234, a search index database 252, a taskdatabase 256, an email user database 237, email message database 238.The inputs may include messages, such as messages to be added to anexisting conversation or a new conversation. The chat service 222 mayadd the messages to the conversation. The chat service 222 may store themessages and/or message associations in a database, such as theconversation database 230.

The messaging services 220 may determine that the messages includeinformation identifying users, such as usernames, handles (i.e.,usernames followed by an @ symbol), accounts, and so on. The messagingservice 220 may add the identified users to the conversations. Themessaging service 220 may store associations of the users and theconversation, such as in the conversation database 230, the groupdatabase 232, the user database 234, and/or the search index database252. The users may be granted access permissions to the conversations,such as to view feeds with previously communicated messages in theconversations.

The messaging services 220 may determine that the messages includeinformation indicative of a topic. The topic may be associated with acorresponding conversation. The messaging service 220 may add the topicto one or more databases, such as the topic database 236. The messagingservices 220 may store associations of the topic and the conversations,such as in the conversation database 230 and/or the topic database 236.

The messaging services 220 may determine that the messages includeinformation identifying groups. The groups may be groups of users. Themessaging service 220 may add the groups to conversations. The messagingservice 220 may store associations of the groups and the conversations,such as in the conversation database 230, the group database 232, theuser database 234, and/or the search index database 252.

The messaging services 220 may determine that the messages includeinformation indicative of tasks assigned to users. The messaging service220 may further receive information indicative of due dates of thetasks. The tasks and due dates may be associated with the users andconversations. The messaging service 220 may add the tasks and due datesto the databases 260, such as the task database 256. The messagingservice 220 may store associations of the tasks, due dates, users, andconversations, such as in the conversation database 230, the userdatabase 234, and the task database 256.

The messaging services 220 may determine that the messages may includeemail addresses. The email addresses may be associated withconversations. The email addresses may be intended recipients of themessages in the conversations. The messaging service 220 may add theemail addresses to the conversations. The messaging service 220 maystore associations of the email addresses, and the conversations, suchas in the conversation database 230, an email user database 237, and/oran email message database 238.

The messaging service 220 may include a push service 224. The pushservice 224 may be a device and/or a program running on a device of themessaging service 220. The push service 224 may receive data from thechat service 222, such as indications of user inputs. The push service224 may store and/or access data in the databases 260. The push service224 may push (e.g., send, display, etc.) data, such as indications ofthe user inputs to the user devices, such as via the messagingapplication 240. The push service 224 may push data to an email addressexternal to the messaging service 220.

The messaging service 220 may include other services. The other servicesmay include a group service 251. The group service 251 may manage groupsof users. The group service 251 may manage stored associations of thegroups. The group service 251 may identify the members included in agroup by searching the search index database 252. The other services mayinclude a reminder/scheduler service 253. The reminder/scheduler service253 may determine associations between the due dates and tasks. Thereminder/scheduler service 253 may send reminders associated with thedue dates and/or tasks. The reminder/scheduler service 253 may managestored due dates and/or tasks.

The other services may include an email service 254. The email service254 may generate email messages and send email messages to emailaddresses external to the messaging service 220. The email service 254may receive data from email addresses external to the messaging service220. The email service 254 may determine a conversation associated thedata received from the email address and generate corresponding messagesto be sent to the users in the conversation. The other services mayfurther include an authentication service 226. The authenticationservice 226 may authorize and verify access to various conversations.The authentication service 226 may grant participants of conversationshierarchical authorities. For instance, only the participants with acertain level of authority may be allowed to add other participants,assign tasks, and so on.

It should be appreciated that the messaging service 220 in FIG. 2 ismerely illustrative and other implementations might be utilized. Itshould also be appreciated that the functionality disclosed herein maybe implemented by one or more servers or computing devices.Additionally, it should be appreciated that the functionality disclosedherein might be implemented in software, hardware or a combination ofsoftware and hardware.

FIG. 3 shows an example of messaging service 220. The messaging service220 may be in communication with a network 301. The network 301 maycomprise Internet. The network 301 may include one or more cloud networkcomponents. The network 301 may communicate via the network with one ormore databases 260. The databases 260 may be the same or similar to thedatabases 230-238 in FIG. 2 . The databases 260 may include a topicdatabase, a conversation database, a user database, and/or a tagdatabase, as examples. The messaging service 220 may store attributesand/or associations in the databases 260. The messaging service 220 mayaccess (e.g., query) the databases 260 for attributes, associations, orother data.

The messaging service 220 may communicate via the network 301 with oneor more user devices 242. The messaging service 220 may communicate withthe devices 302 via a messaging application 240 operating on the userdevices 242. The messaging application 240 may be configured to managedata and permissions, such as conversations, conversation topic tags,users, groups, privacy, and so on.

The messaging service 220 may communicate via the network 301 withconnected users 210. The connected users 210 may be users that areparticipants to a conversation of the messaging service 220 and/ormessaging application 240. For example, the connected users 210 mayreceive messages associated with conversations via an external emailaddress. The connected users 210 may send messages to the messagingservice 220, the messaging application 240, conversations, and/or otherusers from external email addresses.

FIG. 4 shows a messaging technique 400. The technique 400 may beperformed by a messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220 in FIG. 2and FIG. 3 ), a messaging application (e.g., messaging application 240in FIG. 2 and in FIG. 3 ), one or more users 210, and/or one or moreuser devices 242. At 401, a conversation may be started. Theconversation may be started by a creator user (i.e., user who causes thecreation of the conversation) by entering an input via the messagingapplication requesting that a conversation be started. For example, theuser may select a “Start a conversation” icon in the UI of the messagingapplication displayed on a user device. A chat service (e.g., chatservice 222 in FIG. 2 ) may receive the input and may generate aconversation. The conversation may be initiated without any otherparticipants to the conversation having been identified.

At 402, a message may be entered. The message may be entered by a uservia the messaging application. The message may be entered in aconversation, such as via an input field shown in the UI of themessaging application. The message may be entered before any otherparticipants to the conversation have been identified. The message maycomprise text. The chat service may receive the message. The message maybe added to the conversation. The message may be sent to one or moreusers associated with the conversation. The message may be sent to oneor more external users, such as to external email addresses that havebeen added to the conversation. An association of the message and theconversation may be stored in a database (e.g., databases 260 in FIGS.2-3 ).

At 403, the message may be parsed to determine content and/or anattribute. The message may be parsed by the messaging application (e.g.,messaging application 240 in FIGS. 2-3 ) and/or the messaging service(e.g., messaging service 220 in FIGS. 2-3 ). For example, the messagingapplication may determine an attribute of the message, such as oneidentified by a special character in the message and may send anindication of the attribute to the messaging service.

At 404, content of the message may be stored in a content database(e.g., databases 260 in FIGS. 2-3 ). An association of the content andone or more users, such as users tagged in the message, may be stored inthe database, such as the user database 234, the group database 232, thesearch index database 252. The content and/or association may be storedin the database by the messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220 inFIGS. 2-3 ).

At 405, an attribute of the message may be stored in an attributedatabase, such as the topic database 236, the user database 234, thegroup database 232, the search index database 252, the email userdatabase 237, and the task database 256. An association of the attributeand the content of the message may also be stored in the attributedatabase and any other databases. For instance, the attribute and/orassociation may be stored in the databases 260 by the messaging service220 as shown in FIGS. 2-3 .

At 406, the attribute of the message may be processed. For example, thecontent of the message may be tagged by a topic associated with aconversation. As another example, a search may be performed for allusers associated with the content. The attributes of the message may beprocessed by the messaging service.

In contrast to most messaging systems that are based on direct exchangesbetween users, in some embodiments, the messaging system (e.g.,messaging service and messaging application) in accordance with thepresent disclosure is more message centric, where the message is contentand users are attributes of that content. For example, the presentdisclosed techniques do not require identification of a recipient orsubscriber of a conversation. Rather, the present messaging systemallows creation of a conversation, such as a series of messages, by acreator user (e.g., user who causes the creation of the conversation)without any other participants having been identified. The participantsof the conversations are just creator users, not merely recipients. Thecreator users may post messages, label topics of the conversation, addother participants to the conversation, assign tasks to otherparticipants, and so on.

After a conversation has been created, other participants may be addedto the conversation. Unlike most messaging systems, in whichparticipants to a conversation are defined at the inception of theconversation, the present messaging system allows participants to bebrought into a conversation at any time. Participants may be broughtinto an existing conversation by entering the username of a user of thepresent messaging service, the name of a group, or an email address inthe conversation. The participants may then be added to the conversationand receive past and future messages communicated in the conversation,such as in a feed or in notifications. The added participants mayparticipate in the conversation, such as by posting messages in theconversation, by labeling topics of the conversation, by assigningtasks, and/or by adding other participants to the conversation.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment of a data model in accordancewith the present disclosure. It should be appreciated that the exampledata model in FIG. 5 is merely illustrative and other arrangements mightbe utilized. As illustrated, the data model is conversation centric. Inother words, the conversation is the primary data in the database. Otherdata, such as user data, topic date, task data, and so on, areattributes of the conversation. As shown, the conversation database 230of a messaging service includes a plurality of conversations. Theconversation database 230 includes a plurality of tables. For example,the Thread table 502, the Message table 504, and the Content table 506are all stored in the conversation database 230.

The thread table 502 contains items such as Thread_ID, User_ID, andCreated_Time. The Thread_ID is the primary key that is used to referenceother data and attributes. For example, Thread_ID is used to look upmessages associated with a particular Thread_ID. Thread_ID is also usedto look up attributes in the attribute databases related to a thread asidentified by a Thread_ID as explained more fully below. Beforeexplaining the attribute databases, the records stored in theconversation database 230 are more fully explained.

Regarding the conversation database 230, Each time that a new thread(e.g., new conversation) is created by a user, the message servicegenerates and assigns a new Thread_ID and creates a new record in theThread table along with the User_ID of the user who created the threadand a time that the thread was created (Created_Time). Additionally,information associated with each message in a particular thread (e.g.,particular conversation) is stored in the Message table 504 along withthe Thread_ID, the User_ID (for the user who created the message), aMessage_ID that identifies each message, and time that the message wascreated (Created_Time), and an entry identifying other users or groupsthat may have been mentioned and added in a conversation (Is Mentioned).The users or groups that have been mentioned (e.g., prefaced by the @symbol) in a conversation are hereinafter referred to as “Mentions.” Thecontent of each message may be stored separately in the Content table506 and referenced by a corresponding message ID. That's because thestorage size of a message can vary significantly depending on whether itcontains a short string or some form of media such as a JPEG or a video.

As noted above, each thread (conversation) may have associatedattributes. Those attributes are referenced by the Thread_ID of aconversation. For example, Thread_ID is a key into each attributedatabase and can be used to look up all of the associated attributes toa particular conversation. As illustrated in FIG. 5 , a user is anattribute of a conversation. Users who are associated with a particularconversation can be determined by searching the user database 234 forall users associated with a particular Thread_ID corresponding to theparticular conversation. The search would return all matching User_IDs.

Similarly, a search of the email message database 238 would return allUser_IDs for users that are associated with the thread via email. Thatis, each time that an email address is added to a conversation, a newrecord would be created in the email message database 238. Each recordwould store the User_ID of the user who added the email address in theconversation. Additionally, a Return_Email address corresponding to theconversation would be assigned by the messaging service (e.g., messagingservice 220) and stored in the email message database 238. Each emailparticipant (i.e. a participant added via an email address) would alsobe assigned a Mail_Box_User_ID that can be used to look up theassociated Email_Address. The Email Address is stored along with theMessage_ID for the message where the email address was included. TheMessage Content, etc. for each email message is also stored in the emailmessage database 238 (e.g., email attribute tables 522 and 520).

The attribute databases also include, for example, a group database(e.g., group database 232). The group database 232 stores informationabout groups associated with conversations (e.g., group attributes). Thedata stored in the group database 232 include one or more of aThread_ID, a Group_ID, and a Created_Time (the time that the group wascreated). The Group_ID is further used to point to a record thatcontains Group_Name (the name of the group), Owner_User_ID (the User_IDof the owner of the group, e.g., the creator of the group), a group type(e.g., private or public group), a joined time (the time a member joinedthe group), and a state associated with the groups.

In an embodiment, the attribute databases include a task database (e.g.,task database 256) that stores information indicative of taskassignments associated with the conversations (e.g., task attributes).The task attributes stored in the task database 256 are also referencedby Thread_ID of each conversation. Among some of the data andinformation stored in the task database 256 include Deadline (which isessentially a due date), an assignor and assignee user IDs(Assignor_User_ID and Assignee_User_ID), and State (e.g., status). Acreated time, a verified time, and a last updated time may also beassociated with the records stored for the tasks.

According to an embodiment, the attribute databases also include a topicdatabase (e.g., topic database 236) that stores information indicativeof topics associated with the conversations (e.g., topic attributes).The topic database is referenced and associated with a conversation byway to Thread_ID of each conversation and generally includes, a user ID,a Topic_ID, and a created time associated with each topic. Topic_ID isused to reference a topic name (Topic_Name). Each time that a new topicis added to a conversation, e.g., by entry into a message preceded by ahash tag in a conversation, the messaging service (e.g., messagingservice 220) will store an entry into the topic database 236 referencedby the Thread_ID of the conversation.

As described above, these various attributes are all associated withThread_IDs that are generated when a new thread (e.g., new conversation)is created in the messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220).Consequently, the messaging service 220 can search for and retrievevarious attributes associated with the conversation. A conversation anda thread are used herein somewhat interchangeably. In one example, themessage thread database 230 and the plurality of attribute databases(e.g., topic database 236, task database 256, group database 232, emailmessage database 238 and user database 234) may be stored on a sameserver or device. In another example, the message thread database 230and the plurality of attribute databases may be separately stored ondifferent servers or devices. The message thread database 230 and theplurality of attribute databases may be hosted on one or more physicalservers or one or more virtual servers.

FIG. 6 shows an example process 600 performed by the messaging service(e.g. messaging service 220) in connection with the data model as shownin FIG. 5 . Although depicted as a sequence of operations in FIG. 6 ,those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that variousembodiments may add, remove, reorder, or modify the depicted operations.

At 602, the messaging service 220 receives a request from a messagingapplication, e.g., messaging application 240 operating on a user device242, indicative of at least one of the conversations. For example, auser may have requested by way of the messaging application 240information indicative of attributes associated with one or moreconversations in which the user participates. For example, the messagingapplication 240 operating on the user device 242 may request informationindicative of attributes (e.g., topic, user, group, task) associatedwith the conversations for that user. In response to the request, at604, the messaging service 220 will look up all Thread_IDs associatedwith the User_ID of that user in the user database 234 and further queryother attribute databases to determine various attributes associatedwith the identified conversations based on the Thread_IDs. In oneexample, the messaging service 220 may look up all topics in the topicdatabase associated with the Thread IDs. At 606, the messaging service220 processes the query results to determine that at least one attribute(e.g., topic attribute) is associated with at least some of theconversations.

At 608, the messaging service 220 will send the attribute informationassociated with the conversations to the messaging application 240 fordisplay of indicators of attributes on the user device 242. For example,as shown in FIG. 12 , a plurality of topics associated with theconversations are displayed on the leftmost column 1205 of the userinterface (UI) 1200. In some embodiments, there may be a plurality ofattributes and they may be assigned different priorities by themessaging service 220 or the messaging application 240. The messagingservice 220 or the messaging application 240 may organize the pluralityof attributes based on their priorities. In an example, the Mention(i.e., user or group added to conversations) attribute may have a higherpriority than the topic attribute. For example, the Mention attribute(e.g., UserE 2501 and Group1 2504) in FIG. 25 may be assigned a higherpriority than the topic attribute. The indicators of the attributes inFIG. 25 are displayed based on the Mention attribute under which one ormore topics (if any) may be displayed. In an example, there may bemultiple topics associated with conversations that have a particularMention attribute. As illustrated in FIG. 25 , there are multiple topics(including the “patent” topic 2502) are associated with theconversations that have the Mention attribute UserE 2501, and themultiple topics are displayed under the Mention attribute UserE 2501since a Mention attribute has a higher priority than a topic attributein this example.

In some embodiments, in response to receiving a request from themessaging application 240, the messaging service 220 may query thedatabases 260 (e.g., user database 234, task database 256, etc.) todetermine tasks associated with any particular user. For example, themessaging service 220 receives a request from the messaging application240, the request including identification information of a particularuser (e.g., user ID). In response, the messaging service 220 searchesthe user database 234 based on the user ID to identify Thread_IDscorresponding to conversations in which the user is involved. Themessaging service 220 may then query the task database 256 based on theThread_IDs to look up tasks associated with the conversations. Themessaging service 220 may identify Assignor_User_ID and Assignee_User_IDof each task based on searching the task database 256. The messagingservice 220 may then determine whether any of the tasks is associatedwith the particular user based on determining whether either theidentified Assignor_User_ID or the Assignee_User_ID is same as the userID of the particular user. Upon determining that any task is associatedwith the particular user, the messaging service 220 sends to themessaging application 240 information indicative of the determined tasksfor display of the tasks associated with the particular user. In anexample, the messaging application 240 may categorize or order the tasksbased on the due dates associated with the tasks. In another example,the messaging application 240 may categorize or order the tasks based oninformation associated with the assignors or assignees of the tasks. Themessaging application 240 may display the categorized or ordered tasksin a predetermined area of a UI or in a window overlaid on the UI.

In an embodiment, additional interactions between the messagingapplication 240 and the messaging service 220 may occur. For example, at610, the messaging service 220 receives input from the messagingapplication 240 indicating that the messaging application 240 hasselected an attribute such as a topic from a displayed list of topics asshown on the leftmost column in FIG. 12 . In response, at 612, themessaging service 220 queries the message thread database 230 formessages associated with the selected attribute, e.g., the topic.Thereafter, the messaging service 220 sends the messages to themessaging application 240 for display of the messages on the user device242. For example, as shown in FIG. 12 , the messages associated with theselected topic are displayed on the rightmost column 1204 of the UI1200.

FIG. 7 shows another example process 700 illustrating the interactionbetween a messaging application (e.g., messaging application 240) andthe data model maintained in the messaging service 220. Althoughdepicted as a sequence of operations in FIG. 6 , those of ordinary skillin the art will appreciate that various embodiments may add, remove,reorder, or modify the depicted operations. In another embodiment, themessaging service 220 receives a request from a messaging application(e.g., messaging application 240 operating on a user device 242)associated with a user indicative of at least one of the conversationsat 702. In response, the messaging service 220 queries the messagethread database 230 at 704. For example, the messaging service 220 wouldlook up the corresponding conversations in which the user hasparticipated. Thereafter, at 706, the messaging service 220 processesthe query results to determine a subset of messages in eachconversation. In one embodiment, the subset of messages of eachconversation may be an initial message and a last message in theconversation. The messaging service 220 may create a summary of eachconversation based on the subset of messages. The messaging service 220sends the subset of messages to the messaging application 240 fordisplay of the summary of each conversation at 708. For example, asshown in FIG. 12 , summaries of the conversations are displayed in themiddle area 1216 of the UI 1200.

In some embodiments, at 710, the messaging service 220 may receive arequest indicating that a selection of one of the summaries was made bythe messaging application 240. In that case and in response, at 712, themessaging service 220 may again query the conversation database 230 toretrieve all or a plurality of messages in the correspondingconversation. In the embodiments, the messaging service 220 may retrieveall messages in the corresponding conversation. In other embodiments,the messaging service may retrieve a subset of the messages in thecorresponding conversation. For example, when the number of messages andthe content of the messages are such that the amount of storage requiredby the user device (e.g., user device 242) to store the messages isabove a threshold, it may be advantageous for the messaging service 220to only retrieve a subset of messages to send to the user device 242. Ina non-limiting example, the messaging service 220 may retrieve only themost recent messages in the corresponding conversation. At 714, themessaging service 220 sends to the messaging application 240 at least asubset of the retrieved messages in the conversation so that themessaging application 240 can display the messages on the user device242.

FIG. 8 shows messaging techniques. The techniques may be performed by amessaging service (e.g., messaging service 220 in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 ), amessaging application (e.g., messaging application 240 in FIG. 2 andFIG. 3 ), one or more users 210, and/or one or more user devices 242. At801, a conversation may be started. The conversation may be started by acreator user by entering an input via the messaging applicationrequesting that a conversation be started. For example, the user mayselect a “Start a conversation” icon in the UI of the messagingapplication displayed on a user device. A chat service (e.g., chatservice 222 in FIG. 2 ) of the messaging service may receive the inputand may generate a conversation. The conversation may be initiated bythe creator user without any other participants to the conversationhaving been identified.

At 802, a look-up may be performed for all participants (e.g., creatorusers and any other participants) in the conversation upon receiving amessage by the messaging service 220, such as the chat service 222. Thecontent of the message may be determined. The content may be parsed bythe messaging service 220, such as the chat service 222. Parsing thecontent may include determining one or more attributes of the messageand/or conversation. For example, the content may include textcomprising a predetermined special character denoting an attribute, suchas a topic, a user, and/or a group of users. The look-up may beperformed by the messaging service 220, e.g., the chat service 222. Thelook-up may be performed by querying one or more databases 260. Thedatabases 260 may include the conversation database 230, the groupdatabase 232, the user database 234, the topic database 236, the taskdatabase 256, the email user database 237, and/or the email messagedatabase 238. Associations of the participants and the conversation mayhave been stored in the databases 260, such as by the chat service 222.

At 803, a topic associated with the conversation may be determined. Thetopic may be determined by the messaging service 220, such as the chatservice 222. The messaging service 220 may determine that a messagecomprises information indicative of a topic based on parsing the messageand identifying a predetermined character being included in the message.By the way of example and without any limitation, the predeterminedcharacter may be a hash sign #. The messaging service 220 may determinewhether any messages associated with the conversation that have beenreceived contain a new topic by searching existing topics stored in thedatabases 260 (e.g., the topic database 236). Upon determining that thetopic is new, the messaging service 220 may store the new topic into thedatabases 260 (e.g., topic database 236). Associations of theconversation and topic may also be determined and stored into thedatabases 260, such as the conversation database 230 and the topicdatabase 236.

At 804, messages and indications of new topics may be output (e.g.,pushed, sent). An indication of the new topic (e.g., new topic tag) maybe sent by a push service (e.g., push service 224) to messagingapplications (e.g., messaging applications 240) associated with theparticipants of the conversation for display. The messages associatedwith a topic may be output by the push service 224 of the messagingservice 220 upon receiving a user input indicative of a selection of thetopic. The messages and topic tags may be output to users of themessaging applications, such as via the conversation in the UI of themessaging application 240 operating on user devices 242. The messagesand topic tags may be sent to user devices (e.g., user devices 242). Themessages and topic tags may be sent to external email addresses thathave been added to conversation.

At 805, a new participant A may be invited to join the conversation. Thenew participant A may be invited by an existing participant, such as byentering a user name, a group name, or an email address associated withthe new participant A in an input field of the conversation. Themessaging service 220 (e.g., chat service 222) may add the newparticipant A to the conversation. The messaging services (e.g., chatservice 222) may store an association of the new participant A and theconversation in the databases 260, such as in the conversation database230 and the user database 234.

At 806, a look-up may be performed of the existing participants in theconversation. The look-up may be performed by the messaging service 220,such as the chat service 222. The chat service 222 may send anindication of the determined participants in the conversation to thepush service 224.

At 807, the existing participants in the conversation may be notifiedthat the new participant A has been added to the conversation. Theexisting participants may be notified by the push service 224. Notifyingthe existing participants may include sending notifications to userdevices of the existing participants (e.g., user devices 242). Theexisting participants may be notified via the conversation and/or the UIof the messaging application operating on their devices.

At 808, the content of a message associated with the conversation may bedetermined. The content may be parsed by the messaging service 220, suchas the chat service 222. Parsing the content may include determining oneor more attributes of the content of the message. For example, it may bedetermined that a message includes text comprising a special characterdenoting an attribute, such as a new participant A. By the way ofexample and without any limitation, the predetermined special characterdenoting a new user (i.e., new participant) may be an @ sign. A look-upof the conversation may be performed, such as by querying the databases260, such as the conversation database 230 and topic database 236. Thelook-up of the conversation may be performed to determine users,messages, topics, and other attributes associated with the conversation.The chat service 222 may send an indication of the results of theparsing and/or the conversation look-up to the push service 224.

At 809, the results of the conversation look-up, such as messages andtopic tags may be output (e.g., pushed) to the new participant A. Themessages and topic tags may be output by the push service 224.Outputting the messages and topic tags may include sending the messagesand topic tags to the new participant, such as via the conversation inthe UI of the messaging application (e.g., messaging application 240)operating on a user device (e.g., user device 242). The messages andtopic tag may be sent to a user device (e.g., user device 242)associated with the new participant A. The messages in the conversationmay be sent to an external email address associated with the newparticipant A. The messaging service in accordance with the presentdisclosure may categorize conversations based on the attribute of topicsassociated with conversations and provide a participant content of aconversation in response to a selection of a topic tag indicative of thetopic of the conversation in which the participant is interested. Thisallows the present message service to more efficiently provide thecontent of interest to users.

FIG. 9 illustrates, in conjunction with FIG. 8 , aspects of starting anew conversation and adding a user to the new conversation. As notedwith respect to FIG. 4 , the user begins a new conversation. The usercan begin a new conversation by selecting the “Start a conversation”button 917. FIG. 9 illustrates this from the perspective of a userinterface 900 operating on the user device (e.g., user device 242).Here, a user (e.g., User A) has started a conversation 901 and enter amessage “#tag-patent” 903. Since there are no other users associatedwith the message 903, the message only appears in the conversation 901for a single user, User A, who is also the creator of the conversation(i.e., creator user). In this way, the creator user can continue to addmessages to the conversation 901. As explained more fully below, the“#tag-patent” message includes a topic (“patent”) that was entered as atleast a part of first message. A message including a topic can beentered anytime in a conversation. In an embodiment, it is processed bythe messaging service and stored in the database as an attributeassociated with the conversation 901. Likewise, as explained, otherparticipants of the conversation 901 (e.g., users of the messagingservice that have access permissions to the conversation 901) can alsobe added to the conversation 901 as attributes of the conversation 901.

Referring again to FIG. 8 , the creator user of the conversation caninvite a new user to participate in a conversation (i.e., newparticipant). In some embodiments, the messaging service uses a chatservice 222 and a push service 224 as noted above, in communication witha plurality of databases 260 as discussed. Continuing with the example,a user may start a conversation at 810 comprising one or more messages.The messages may comprise a plurality of characters, symbols, be a textstring, or other type of content. As new messages are added to theconversation, the chat service 222 determines which users are attributesof the conversation, i.e., users associated with the conversation. Theseattributes are stored in one or more databases. Such databases include,but are not limited to, a conversation database (e.g., conversationdatabase 230), a group database (e.g., group database 232), and a topicdatabase (e.g., topic database 236), and an email user database (e.g.,email user database 237). Participants of the conversation areidentified and may be notified of the conversation.

Once messages in a conversation are received, the messaging service(e.g., messaging service 220) may determine whether there are new topicsincluded in the messages forming the conversation, and existing topicsmay be searched for in the one or more databases, such as the topicdatabase 236. Accordingly, attributes of the conversation, e.g., topics,users, groups, etc., ensure that the conversation is properlycategorized such as based on topics and that the new conversation ispushed out to the participants. Push service 224 assists in the outputof messages, existing topic tags, and new topic tags to intendedparticipants. In some embodiments, this may occur through pushingmessages to a user interface or user display on a device associated withthe intended participants of conversations.

In another example, a user may be invited to join a conversation. Forexample, new participant A may be invited to join an existingconversation at 805, which authorizes the messaging service (e.g.messaging service 220) to share information related to the conversationwith new participant A. Chat service 222 processes this action, looks upall existing participants associated with the conversation at 506,similar to the prior example, and communicates with one or moredatabases 260 (e.g., databases 230-236) as needed to obtain relatedinformation. Once the participants are identified, push service 224notifies the identified existing participants associated with theconversation, in order to indicate to the existing participants that anew participant has been added to the conversation at 807.

After the new participant A has been invited to join a conversation,messages, content, and/or metadata related to the conversation areretrieved from, e.g., the conversation database 230 and the topicdatabase 236, so that the push service can transmit the relevant aspectsof the conversation to the new participant. FIG. 9 illustrates anexample user interface (UI) 900 of the aspects of techniques to invite anew user to participate in a conversation. In the FIG. 9 , the UI 900 isshown such as would be presented on a user device (e.g., user device242) through the messaging application (messaging application 240). Inthis instance and as shown in the UI 900, User A has started aconversation 901 comprising one or more messages 902. In this example,the message “Hello” has been added to the conversation 901. Moreover,another message including a topic “patent” 903 has been added to theconversation 901. That conversation 901 may be stored in the databases260, e.g., the conversation database 230. In order to add a new user,information indicative of a user is typed into a message field 904 ofthe UI 900, using the @ symbol 905 or any other predetermined specialcharacters followed by a text string 906 identifying the user by way of,e.g., a username. Here, the username of User C was entered into the textfield prefaced by an @ sign.

In an embodiment, after the user selects the “Send” button 907, themessage is sent to the messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220).The messaging service then parses the message to determine that themessage contains the predetermined @ symbol 905 and interprets thesubsequent text 906 of the message as user identifying information, asdescribed for example in FIG. 4 . The messaging service then interpretsthat message as a request by User A to authorize the system to add theidentified User C (i.e., new participant) to the conversation. Otherembodiments are also contemplated, for example, the messagingapplication on the user device could parse the message and send anindicator to the messaging service that the user wants to authorize theidentified User C (i.e., new participant) to join the conversation. Inother words, processing of the message could be done in part on the userdevice and part of the processing could be done by the messagingservice.

In an event, once authorized, the cloud service could add informationidentifying the new participant (e.g., the user name of the newparticipant) as an attribute of the conversation. To that end, the useris associated with the conversation 901, and the association stored inthe databases 260. It will be appreciated that a plurality of symbols,text, characters, etc., may be defined to be indicators associated withidentifying a particular user. In this specific example, the @ sign wasthe predetermined symbol used for adding a new user and the user enteredthe new username as “@UserC,” who was recognized by the messagingservice as a new participant to the conversation 901.

FIG. 10 illustrates aspects of this feature from a UI 1000 perspectiveafter the new participant 1002 (e.g., User C) was added to theconversation 1001. In this example, the username of the new participant1002 becomes another message in the conversation 1001 as illustrated. Inother words, the fact that a new participant was added to theconversation 1001 is preserved in the text of the conversation 1001itself. Consequently, the order and time that new participants and otherattributes are added to a conversation 1001 could be discerned byparsing messages in a conversation 1001. For example, the user (e.g.,User A) also entered another message including a topic “#tag-patent1” tothe conversation 1001 at 09:31 pm after adding new participant User C.Consequently, the user (e.g., User A) can add a new user to theconversation, designate one or more topics to be associated with theconversation 1001 by entering messages, e.g., “#tag-patent”,“#tag-patent1.” These particular messages in the conversation 1001 alsobecome attributes of the conversation that are stored in variousattribute databases, such as the topic database 236 the user database234, and so on as shown in FIG. 2 . In embodiments, attributes may bedefined using different symbols, letters, characters, for example, using@ to indicate that a username or other user identification will beentered, and a hashtag, #, to indicate the topic to associate with theconversation 1001. It is contemplated that other symbols could be usedfor additional attributes to add to a conversation.

FIGS. 9-10 also illustrate that conversations may be sorted, forexample, by topics, as indicated in the leftmost column 909, 1009. Thedepicted examples illustrate what is labeled as “Feed” view 908, 1008wherein conversations are sorted by an attribute, such as the topicattribute. Selecting a feed will display a list of one or moreconversations in a condensed version of the conversation and associatedwith the selected topic. In an embodiment, selecting a condensed versionof the conversation will display the one or more messages associatedwith the selected conversation. Here for example, the condensed (orsummary) of the conversation is shown with the creator of theconversation listed at the top followed by the initial message in theconversation, “UserB Hello” 910, 1010, followed by the last message inthe conversation, which was the message “#tag-patent1” 911, 1011 foradding the second topic. The condensed (or summary) of the conversationshows a user a preview of the conversation, which allows a user todetermine whether he/she is interested in the conversation and wouldlike to review entire content of the conversation by selecting thesummary of the conversation. The topics (shown as topic tags on the UI)serve as short descriptors of content of conversations.

In other embodiments, as discussed herein below, conversations may besorted by one or more other categories and classifications, such as a“Groups” view 912, 1012, wherein conversations and messages areorganized based on the groups to which each of those conversations andmessages are directed. These will be further described below in otherembodiments.

FIG. 11 illustrates embodiments for adding topic tags to a conversationand adding new messages to a conversation. As alluded to above, topictags corresponding to topics are attributes of a conversation that areused, for example, in the Feed View to allow for easy sorting,management, and selection of conversations. One or more topics may beassociated with a conversation by way of such topic tags. By the way ofexample and without any limitation, a topic tag may be a text stringwith a leading character indicating that the subsequent text contains atopic. In this embodiment, the hash symbol or “#” is the predeterminedcharacter recognized by the messaging service to denote a topic. A user(i.e., participant) may start a conversation. In this example, the useralso adds a topic at 1110 to the conversation. Chat service 222 thenreceives the indication of a new conversation and may parse messages todetect the existence of the topic. As noted early in the description,the parsing of the messages may be done by the messaging service (e.g.,messaging service 220), by the messaging application (e.g., messagingapplication 240) on the user device (e.g., user device 242), or somecombination of both. After a conversation is started by entering amessage, such as a message comprising a topic, a lookup 830 occurs todetermine whether any other users, i.e. participants are associatedattributes of the conversation. The look up can occur through one ormore searches of databases 260, such as the conversation database 230,group database 232, user database 234, and topic database 236.

Once relevant users (i.e., participants of a conversation) areidentified, the conversation is added to all participants' topic tagclassifications at 840 that are stored and tracked in the variousdatabases. In other words, an association may be stored between the newconversation and the designated topic tag, and an association may bestored associating all users associated with the topic tag who are alsoassociated with the conversation. Consequently, conversations aresummarized for all participants 1150 in connection with the topic tag.For example, where users are added to the conversation, the users mayreceive a condensed version of the topic consisting of the first andlast messages. A push service 224 can further process such messages andallow the messages to be output at 1152, e.g., on a user display, sentto respective users, and update respective views for existing tags andnew tags, for example in Feed Views of conversations sorted by suchtags.

In another embodiment, illustrated in FIG. 11 , the topic tag featuresare incorporated into existing conversations. For example, at 1115, anew message comprising an indication of a topic can be added to anexisting conversation. Similar to the prior described process, receivinga message comprising information indicative of the topic results in alook up for all participants in the conversation at 1135. An associationbetween the topic and the conversation, and associations between theparticipants and the topic may be stored in the databases 260, such asthe conversation database 230, the topic database 236, the user database234, the group database 232, and the email user database 237. At 1145, alook up for other existing topic tags can occur to determine whether thetopic is new, for example, if there were multiple topic tags existingwithin and associated with the conversation. At 1156, the messagingservice 220, e.g., the push service 224 then push the message and thenew topic tag corresponding to the new topic, to respectiveparticipants.

Examples of these techniques are illustrated through the user interfaceexamples of FIGS. 12-13 . FIG. 12 illustrates a Feed view 1208 of anexample messaging application, providing a list of topic tags 1215. Inthis example, a conversation 1201 comprising a message “#tag-patent”that includes a topic prefaced by a predetermined character “#.” Asnoted above, the predetermined character denoting a topic may be anyother special characters, such as % sign. When the message is determinedby the messaging service to include a new topic based on determiningthat the message includes the predetermined character # and searchingthe databases 260, the conversation is added to the list ofconversations associated with the new topic. Thus, when thecorresponding topic tag is selected from the Feed view 1208 via the UIof the messaging application (e.g., messaging application 240), thecurrent conversation 1201, as well as all other conversations associatedwith the new topic may be readily viewed and organized by allparticipants of the conversations.

FIG. 13 further illustrates this concept, as well as the ability to sortconversations based on the topic. Here, the user has selected the topictag “#tag-patent” 1316 in the leftmost column 1315 of the UI 1300. Thatcauses the messaging service to push the condensed version of eachconversation that is related to the user and the selected topic. Theselection of the topic tag “#tag-patent” 1316 also causes the messagingservice to push content of the corresponding conversation for display ofthe messages in the conversation in the rightmost area 1325 of the UI1300. Those conversation are then displayed in the Feed view 1308without displaying other unrelated conversations. The order of the topictags displayed in the Feed view 1308 may be arranged according to userpreference, such as a priority or importance of each topic.Conversations associated with each topic tag may also be sorted based onone or more variables, such as time, last message received, priority,user preference, and so forth. Again, each conversation comprises aplurality of messages, and users associated with that particularconversation may view messages, send messages, and add attributes, suchas additional users, topics, groups, etc. as discussed herein.

In various embodiments, a user may generate a conversation comprisingone or more messages that may include attributes. Messages may beparsed, and a determination made that a message comprises a stringindicative of attributes, such as a user, topic, group, etc., based uponone or more messages being parsed. The attributes may be stored in atleast one database as an association between the information indicativeof topics and conversations. In response to receiving an inputindicative of a selection of a topic from the messaging application(e.g., messaging application 240), at least a subset of a conversationassociated with the topic is sent by the messaging service (e.g.,messaging service 220) to the messaging application 240 for display.

In additional embodiments, a messaging service can further determinethat the topic is new by searching the at least one database, the atleast one database comprising information related to topics and store inthe at least one database information indicative of the topic based uponthe determination that the topic is new. In another example, a secondmessage in the conversation may be parsed. A determination may be madethat the second message comprises information identifying a second userand consequently authorize the second user to add messages to theconversation. Information indicative of the topic may be sent to one ormore messaging applications, e.g., operated by one or more other users,and a database can store a plurality of conversations, in addition to aplurality of attributes, e.g., topics, associated with eachconversation.

One or more features and functions may occur through the use of amessaging service, which may comprise at least one database, at leastone computing device in communication with the at least one database andthe at least one computing device is configured to perform operations.In addition, various aspects of processing can be split between amessaging application and a messaging service. In some embodiments itmay be preferable to have the messaging app perform operations and inother embodiments the same operations may be performed by the service.

In the Feed view 1308, conversations may be initiated, such as byselecting an icon, such as a “Start a Conversation” icon 1317. Unlikeother messaging applications, the conversations may be organized bytopic rather than only by users. Topics may be defined by users at thebeginning of a conversation. For example, a creator user who initiates aconversation 1301 may assign a topic to the conversation 1301. Topicsmay also be defined by other participants at other stages of theconversation. The topic may be denoted by use of a special character ortag, such as “#” symbol. The creator user may then add otherparticipants to the conversation or may carry on a conversation alone.

In the “Feed” view 1308, one or more panels 1315, 1318, 1320, may bedisplayed. The panels may comprise an open (e.g., expanded) conversationpanel 1318. Participants may communicate in the open conversation panel1318, such as by entering messages in an input field 1304. The enteredmessages may appear as a log or feed 1319 of the conversation 1301, suchas in the order in which they were sent, entered, or received. A timestamp may be displayed near messages in the conversation 1301 toindicate a time that the messages were sent, entered, or received. Theusername of the participant that entered a message may appear alongsidethe message in the conversation.

The panels may comprise a collapsed conversation panel 1320. Thecollapsed conversation panel 1320 may be adjacent to the openconversation panel 1318. The collapsed conversation panel 1320 may showpreviews 1321 a, 1321 b of conversations, such as a first message of theconversation, a title of the conversation, a last message of theconversation, and/or a number of unread messages in the conversation.

FIGS. 14-19 illustrate aspects of interactions between participants inthe context of a group (e.g., group of users), and various techniquesand embodiments in which messaging services and applications mayclassify, organize, and output messages and conversations related togroups. It should be appreciated that FIGS. 14-19 are merelyillustrative, and a group may be created and join conversations in othersuitable manners.

FIG. 14 illustrates aspects for inviting existing or newly createdgroups into conversations and creating new groups. At 1405, an existingor a newly created group may be invited to join any conversations. Byway of example and without limitation, the group comprising multiplemembers, as an attribute, can be invited to join and authorized toparticipate in multiple conversations. The group attribute also allows asame conversation to have multiple group participants. Additionally, agroup participant to a conversation enables the content of theconversation to be pushed to all members of the group at once. Thus, thepresent messaging service provides more flexibility and efficiency thanexisting messaging systems.

The group can be invited by a participant of any conversation bysearching for the group name of the group. By way of example and withoutlimitation, in response to receiving a user input indicating to invitethe group to the conversation, the messaging service stores anassociation between the group and the conversation into the databasebases 260, such as the conversation database 230 and the group database232.

At 1406, information associated with the conversation can be recordedfor all members of the group in the databases 260, such as the groupdatabase 232 and the search index database 252. The informationassociated with the conversation can include messages in theconversation, attributes of the conversation, and any other informationassociated with the conversation. The information associated with theconversation can be sent to the push service 224.

At 1407, at least a subset of messages in the conversation are pushed toall of the members of the group after the group is invited toparticipate in a conversation. The messages can be pushed by the pushservice 224. Pushing the messages can include sending the messages tothe members, such as to their devices. Pushing the messages can includecausing the messages to be displayed in the UI of the messagingapplications associated with the members.

FIG. 16 illustrates aspects of the Group view 1600 in a UI of themessaging application. In the Group view 1600, groups to which a userbelongs are displayed to the user. FIG. 16 lists 8 groups to which auser belongs. According to embodiments, the groups are displayed in alist. The group display shows attributes of the groups and one or moreselectable interface elements (e.g., selectable buttons “Edit” and“Delete”). The attributes include group names 1601. FIG. 16 shows groupnames including “Group1, “Group 2,” “Group 3,” etc. The informationassociated with the group is sent to the messaging service (e.g.,messaging service 220) and maintained in the databases 260 (e.g., thegroup database 232, the search index database 252, etc.) by themessaging service 220.

Once the group is authorized to participant a conversation, anassociation between the group and the conversation will be stored in thedatabases 260. For example, the messaging service 220 stores the threadidentification (ID) of the conversation and the group identification(ID) of the group in the group database 232. By way of example andwithout limitation, the association between the group and theconversation can be identified based on the thread ID of theconversation and the group ID. The messaging service may generate asearch index based on the information associated with the group andstore the search index in the databases 260, such as the search indexdatabase 252. Associations between all members of the group and theconversation may be determined based on the search index, and theassociations may be storied in the databases 260. The informationassociated with the group and members of the group may be retrieved fromthe databases 260 so that messages in the conversation may be sent tothe messaging applications for display associated with all members ofthe group (that is a group participant of the conversation) based on theretrieved information.

After the group is invited to participate in a conversation (i.e., as agroup participant), identification information of individual members ofthe group may not be sent to messaging applications associated with theparticipants of the conversation for display unless any particularindividual member is invited to the conversation by other participantsor directly participates in the conversation (e.g., posting messages inthe conversation). If any particular individual member of the group isinvited to the conversation by other participants or directlyparticipates in the conversation, the identification information of theparticular individual member is sent to the messaging applicationsassociated with the participants of the conversation for display of theidentification information of the particular individual member;moreover, the particular individual member may continue to participatein the conversation as an individual participant even after the group isremoved from the conversation. Any other members of the group who havenot been invited to the conversation by other participants or directlyparticipated in the conversation will not receive any further messagesin the conversation after the group is removed from the conversation orafter the individual members are removed from the group.

As further described below, a member may be added to a group or removedfrom a group. Upon receiving information indicative of editing a group(e.g., adding or removing a member), the messaging service (e.g.,messaging service 220) updates the databases 260 (e.g., group database232 and search index database 252). The messaging service 220 searchesthe databases 260 to determine which members are currently included inthe group and sends to the members currently in the group any message ina conversation which the group participates in as a group participant.If any former individual member of the group had been invited to theconversation by other participants or directly participated in theconversation before this individual member is removed from the group,this former individual member may continue participant in theconversation as an individual participant; the messaging service 220 maycontinue to send messages in the conversation to this former individualmember currently as an individual participant.

The attributes of a group may include group privacy settings 1602. Asshown in FIG. 16 , the Group “Group 1” is private. The Group “Group 2”is also private. Privacy settings may also be maintained in the database260, such as the group database 232. For any private group, the privategroup are accessible to the members of the private group only. Unlike aprivate group, a public group are not limited to the members of thegroup. Instead, public groups are accessible to any participants of theconversation or at least a subset of other users registered with themessaging service (e.g., messaging service 220).

The attributes of a group may also include people 1603 (e.g., members ofthe groups). FIG. 16 shows the “Group 1” group having 10 members. The“Group 2” has three members. In the Group view, the members of eachgroup may be represented by their profile pictures, account avatars,usernames, and/or handles, as examples, which may be maintained in theuser devices (such as user device 242) and/or in the databases 260 ofthe messaging service 220.

The Group view includes features for a user to manage their groups. Inaddition to the feature of creating a new group as described above andparticularly shown in FIG. 15 , the features may include actions 1605.The actions 1605 include an “edit” option that enables a user to changeattributes, such as name, privacy setting, and members of a group (e.g.,adding or removing members). In response to a user selecting the editoption, a window, such as one similar to the window 1203 in FIG. 12 isdisplayed. The window includes an option to add or remove members. Theactions 1605 may further include a “delete” option that enables a userto delete a group.

By way of example and without limitation, a new group may be created at1401. The new group comprises a plurality of members. The group can becreated by a group service 251 of the messaging service 220. Themessaging service 220 may also create a group ID for the new group. Thegroup can be created based on a user input. The user input may bereceived via a Group view of the UI of the messaging application, suchas the Groups view 1501 in FIG. 15 . A user may toggle from the Feedview 1502 to the Groups view 1501. In the Group view, a participant of aconversation may select a “New Group” icon 1507. In response to theuser's selecting the icon 1507, a UI (e.g., window 1503) with optionsfor creating a new group is displayed. A new group may be created viathe UI (e.g., window 1503).

The options include a privacy setting 1504. The privacy setting 1504 isselected by selecting an icon 1508, such as a slidable icon ortoggle-able icon, with privacy options. In embodiments, a private groupis not searchable by other users across the messaging platform. In otherembodiments, non-private groups are found and thus added to variousconversations, associated with attributes, etc.

The options include a group name 1505. The group name 1505 is entered byentering a string of text in an input field 1509. As shown in FIG. 15 ,a group name “Patent Team” is entered in the input field 1509. The groupname 1505 distinguishes the group from other groups. The group can besearched by its group name 1505.

The options include users (i.e., members) 1506 in the group. FIG. 15shows Patent Team group having five members. The members 1506 in thegroup are invited (e.g., added) by searching for information identifyingthe members 1506. By the way of example and without any limitation, theinformation identifying the members 1506 of the group may comprise auser name associated with any member, an account in an entity associatedwith any member, an email address associated with any member, or a phonenumber associated with any member). Upon receiving identificationinformation of the members of the group, the messaging service 220 maystore the identification information of the members into the databases260, such as the group database 232 and the search index database 252.

The members 1506 are added by entering a string of text in an inputfield 1510. For example, FIG. 15 shows searching for a member named“User C” to invite to the “Patent Team” group. The window shows a number1511 of members that have been selected to be invited to the group. Theoptions selected in the window become attributes and/or associations ofthe group.

The group may be cancelled by selecting a “Cancel” button 1507 in theUI. The group may be saved by selecting a “Save” button 1508 in the UI.In response to the group being saved, the attributes and associations ofthe group may be saved to a database.

Referring back to FIG. 14 , at 1402, group information (e.g.,attributes, associations) are recorded (e.g., saved, stored) to one ormore databases 260, such as the group database 232 in FIG. 2 . The groupinformation can be recorded by the group service 251. The database caninclude the conversation database 230, the group database 232, the userdatabase 234, and/or the search index database 252.

At 1403, a search index is built for storing indexes of searchinginformation. The search index can be built by the group service 251. Thesearch index can operate in conjunction with other databases, such asthe conversation database 230, the topic database 236, the groupdatabase 232, and the user database 234. The search index allows themessaging service to search for attributes (e.g., group attribute)associated with messages and conversations. The search index allowsmanagement of access permissions. Based on the search index, groupmembers have access to certain conversations and messages.

At 1404, information associated with the group may be output to themessaging applications associated with the participants of theconversation for display. Outputting the group information can includesending an indication of the group to the participants, such as to theirdevices. Outputting the group information can include causing the groupinformation to be displayed via the UI of the messaging applications, asshown in FIG. 16 .

FIG. 17 illustrates aspects 1700 for adding a new member to an existinggroup. At 1701, a new member is added to an existing group. The newmember can be added to the existing group in response to receiving auser input. A user may enter the input by selecting one of the “edit”icons in the Group View of the UI. A window may be displayed with a listof current members to the group. The user may search for the name of auser that is not a member to the group and select to invite the newmember to the group.

A group service 251 of the messaging service may add the new member tothe existing group. The group service 251 may add the new member basedon receiving the user input. The group service 251 may save anassociation of the new member and the group to one or more databases260. The databases 260 may include the conversation database 230, thegroup database 232, the user database 234, the topic database 236,and/or the search index database 252, as examples.

At 1702, a look-up is performed for information related to the groupsuch as associated conversations, topic tags, etc. The group attributesinclude such things as existing group members. The look-up is performedby sending queries to one or more databases 260. The attributes areimported for the new member. Importing the attributes may include savingthe attributes locally, such as to a memory of the group service 251 andsaving the new member attributes to group database 232.

At 1703, the conversations associated with the group are output to thenew member. The conversations can be output by the push service 224.Outputting the conversations can include sending messages included invarious conversations associated with the group to the new member, suchas to a device of the new member. Outputting the conversations caninclude causing the conversations to be displayed via the UI of themessaging application to the new member.

At 1704, members of the group are found. The members of the group can befound by the group service 251 and/or the push service 224. The membersof the group can be found by querying the databases 260. The groupservice 251 can determine the members of the group and send anindication of the members to the push service 224.

At 1705, existing members of the group are notified of the determinedmembers of the group. The members can be notified by the push service224. The members can be notified that the new member has been added.Notifying the members can include sending a notification to the members,such as to their devices. Notifying the members can include causing themembers of the group to be displayed to the members via the UI of themessaging application, such as in the Group View.

In some embodiments, the messaging service 220 and/or the messagingapplication 240 may receive a message in conversations that includeinformation for specifying a group comprising a plurality of members. Inresponse to receiving the information, the messaging service 220 mayquery the databases 260 and send at least a subset of the messages inthe conversation to the messaging applications 240 associated with themembers of the group for display of the at least a subset of themessages in the conversation. In an example, the messaging service 220and/or the messaging application 240 may acquire information associatedwith the members of the group by analyzing data associated with thegroup. In an example, the data associated with the group compriseinformation of the members and attributes of the group. In anotherexample, the data associated with group may further comprise at least ofa part of content of the conversation in which the group participates.

According to yet another aspect, a task associated with a due date maybe created and assigned by one participant (assignor user) to anotherparticipant (assignee user) within a conversation. FIGS. 18 and 19illustrate techniques for assigning a task associated with a due datewithin a conversation. The messaging service includes a chat service222. The chat service 222 can be provided by a device or a program, suchas in the cloud computing network 100 in FIG. 1 . The chat service 222enables users of the messaging service to exchange messages in aconversation and/or to generate conversations.

A task is initiated when the chat service 222 receives an input from auser. In some embodiments, the task may be first edited by the assignoruser via the messaging application (e.g., messaging application 240),and then the assignee user is invited to join the conversation so as toassign the task to the assignee user. In other embodiments, the editingof the task and inviting the assignee user for assigning the task may beperformed at the same time on the same UI of the messaging applicationassociated with the assignor user. The chat service 222 can receive theinput via a conversation, such as via an input field of the conversationin the UI of the messaging application on a user device.

To illustrate, FIG. 19 shows the UI 1900 of the messaging application inthe Feed view, in which a user can enter an input in the input field1903. The user can be a creator user of a conversation or otherparticipant to the conversation. The input is a string of text. Forexample, in FIG. 19 , the user “User A” is inputting a string of text“User B Please give us a conclusion.” The text may describe a task. Forexample, the User A's text includes “Please give us a conclusion,”wherein the task is “giving a conclusion.” The text can include anindication of another user, such as a user to whom the task is assigned.For example, User A's text includes the name of another user, User B.The user identified in the input can be user registered with themessaging service (e.g., messaging service 220) and participating in theconversation. The user identified in the input may not be an entityexternal to the messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220), such asan email participant to the conversation that will be further describedbelow. In this example, User A is an assignor user, and Use B is anassignee user.

The input can include a date associated with the message. The date canbe a due date for the task. The date can be a date on which a remindershould be sent regarding the task. The date can comprise a selection ofan icon output via the UI of the messaging application on a user device.The icon may represent a calendar, such as the icon 1601 in FIG. 16 .

Referring back to FIG. 18 , at 1802, assignment information is generatedbased on the input. The chat service 222 can generate the assignmentinformation. The assignment information can include an associationbetween the user assigning the task, the user being assigned the task,the message and/or task, and/or the due date. The assignment informationis stored to one or more databases 260, such as a task database 256, aconversation database 230, and a user database 234. The chat service 222can store the assignment information.

At 1803, based on the assignment information, an assignor attributeand/or an assignee attribute is added to the conversation. The chatservice 222 can add the attributes. Adding the attributes can includestoring an association between the assignor user, the assignee user, themessage and/or task, the due date, and/or the conversation. Theattributes are stored into the databases 260, such as the conversationdatabase 230, the task database 256, the user database 234, and thegroup database 232.

According to embodiments, the task has a status. The status is based onthe due date of the task and/or an attribute describing what stage ofcompletion the task is in. For example, when the task and/or due date isgenerated, the status may be set to “open,” “incomplete,” and/or“unverified.” The descriptive attribute of the status may be apre-filled selectable input in the UI, such as a selectable icon or listof selectable icons. The descriptive attribute may be a string of textinput by a user, such as in an input field of the UI of the messagingapplication.

The assignor user and/or the assignee user may change the status, suchas to “closed,” “completed,” and/or “verified.” The status may bechanged based on whether the task has been completed. For example, ifthe task has been completed, the status may be changed to “done.” Thestatus is saved in association with the task and/or or due dates in thedatabases 260. In response to the status changing, the new status issaved to the databases 260. The messaging service 220 (e.g., chatservice 222) can determine and store the status, timestamps (e.g.,verified time, last updated time, etc.), and other information in thedatabase 260 (e.g., the task database 256). In response to the statuschanging, notifications are sent to users. According to embodiments, thestatus is displayed to the assignor user, the assignee user, and/orparticipants to the conversation, such as in the conversation in the UIof the messaging application on user devices. Upon receiving informationindicative of a status and a due date of the task, the messagingapplication may display the status and the due date of the task.

At 1804, all participants in the conversation are found. The chatservice 222 can find the participants. The participants in theconversation may be determined by querying the databases 260. Theparticipants can be sent to a push service 224 of the messaging service.The push service 224 can be a device or program of the messagingservice.

At 1806, the status of the task is pushed to the determined participantsof the conversation. The push service 224 can push the status. Pushingthe status can include sending the status to devices of the participants(e.g., user devices 242). Pushing the status can include displaying thestatus in the conversation via the UI of the messaging application(e.g., messaging application 240) on user devices (messaging application242). The messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220) may update thestatus of the task upon receiving information indicative of a change tothe due date or the status of the task, such as from the assignor userand the assignee user. The messaging service will then send informationindicative of an updated status of the task to user devices associatedwith the participants for displaying the updated status of the task.

According to embodiments, the messaging service includes a reminderscheduler service 253. The reminder scheduler service 253 can be adevice or program of the messaging service. The reminder schedulerservice 253 has access to the databases 260 of the messaging service.The reminder scheduler service 253 determines an assigned task, aconversation associated with the task, and one or more users associatedwith the task.

The user (e.g., User A) may enter an input indicative of a reminderdate. As shown in FIG. 19 , the user can enter an input via the UI 1900of the messaging application indicating a date by which to send areminder. For example, the User A selects a date selection icon 1902.Based on the selection of the date selection icon 1902, a window withselectable dates 1901 is displayed. The window 1901 can represent acalendar, showing days and months in a year. The User A selects areminder date of Apr. 28, 2020 in the window 1901. Based on the userinputting a reminder date, the reminder date is sent to and stored inassociation with the task and/or due date in the databases 260, such asthe task database 256 as shown in FIG. 15 , such as by the reminderscheduler service 253 of the messaging service 220.

The reminder scheduler service 253 can determine if the status of thetask and/or due date has changed. The reminder scheduler service 253 candetermine if the status of the task has changed by querying thedatabases 260 to determine the current descriptive attribute assigned tothe task and/or the due date and if the due date has lapsed. Based onthe status changing to a “closed,” “complete,” and/or “verified” status,the reminder scheduler service 253 does not send the reminder. At 1811,based on the status of the task not changing or remaining “open,”“incomplete,” or “unverified,” a reminder of the task and/or due date issent by the reminder scheduler service 253. The reminder is sent to theassignor user, the assignee user, another participants of theconversation. The message can be sent to the push service 224. Anindication of a change of the status is sent to the push service 224.

At 1812, the push service 224 receives the message from the reminderscheduler service 253. The messaging service 220 (e.g., push service224) notifies and/or reminds the assignor user and/or the assignee userof the due date and/or the task. The messaging service may also notifyor remind other participants of the due date and/or the task. The pushservice 224 notifies the assignor user, assignee user, and otherparticipants of the reminder and/or of a change of the status to the duedate and/or task. According to some embodiments, the push service 224notifies the participants by sending messages to devices associated withthe users. According to an aspect, the push service 224 may send thereminders at predetermined time periods, such as one week before a duedate, two weeks before a due date, a day before a due date, an hourbefore a due date, etc. The push service 224 may notify the participantsby causing a reminder to appear in the UI output via the devices of theparticipants. The push service 224 may cease providing reminders basedon the status of the due date and/or task changing. The feature ofassigning and reminding tasks enables the messaging service inaccordance with the present disclosure to provide more functionalitiesthan conventional messaging systems.

A user can respond to another user's changing the status. For example,an assignor user responds to an assignee user marking a task as “done,”by marking the task “verified” to show that the user verified that thetask is completed. The assignor user can reopen a tasked marked “done,”such as if the user finds that the task has not been performedsatisfactorily or determines that further work is needed. According toembodiments, based on the status changing, a color or other indicatorsof the due date and/or task, as displayed in the UI, changes. Based onthe status changing, an indication of the change is sent to theparticipants of the conversation, such as by the push service 224.

In some embodiments, the messaging application 240 may receiveinformation associated with a task in a conversation. The informationcomprises an identifier for identifying a user (e.g., assignee), contentof a task, and information indicative of a date. The messagingapplication 240 may send the information associated with the task to themessaging service 220. Upon receiving the information from the messagingapplication 240, the messaging service 220 may send the information tothe identified user (e.g., assignee). The messaging application 240 mayfurther receive information indicative of an update of the status of thetask and display the updated status of the task. The content of the taskmay comprise at least a part of content of the conversation.

According to an embodiment, the messaging service 220 merges features ofchat and email with email integration features. FIG. 20 shows an examplechat and email integration process of the messaging service. Themessaging service in accordance of the present disclosure implements anintegration of email and messaging services, which improves theefficiency of exchanging information. As shown, the messaging service(e.g., the messaging service 220) includes a chat service 222. The chatservice 222 may be an independent service or incorporated as features ofthe messaging service 220. The chat service 222 manages conversations inthe messaging service 220.

At 2002, the chat service 222 receives an input from, e.g., a userdevice. In particular, the chat service 222 receives the input in theform of a message via the messaging application operating on a userdevice, such as via an input field of a UI of the messaging application240. FIG. 21 provides an illustration of an example UI inviting an emailparticipant to a conversation 2101 and entering messages addressed tothe email participant. In order to include an external email participantA in the conversation 2101, a user enters a message in the form of anexternal address such as an email address. In the specific example UI2100 illustrated in FIG. 21 , the user has entered the email addressUserF@gmail.com 2105. Consequently, the chat service parses the messageand recognizes it as an email address associated with an entity externalto the messaging service (i.e., email participant A). The email addressis further associated with an email service 254. The example illustratesthat the user has entered an email address including the domain“gmail.com.” Other embodiments could employ email aliases that arepreviously known to the messaging service that are denoted, for example,by a predefined character.

Referring back to FIG. 20 , at 2008, the chat service 222 stores anassociation of the email address and the conversation, such as in theconversation metadata 230 and the email user database 237. Once theemail participant A is invited and authorized to access theconversation, the messaging service (e.g., messaging service 220) maygenerates an identifier for identifying the conversation. The identifiermay be used for identifying the conversation by an email serviceexternal to the messaging service 220 and associated with the emailaddress of the email participant. In another example, the messagingservice 220 may generate the identifier for identifying the conversationto be used by an external email service before any email participant isinvited to the conversation. The messaging service may send theidentifier to the external email service associated with the emailparticipant. By the way of example without limitation, the identifierfor identifying the conversation may be a return email addresscorresponding to the conversation. The external email service may thensend an email to the return email address associated with theconversation. In response to a determination that the email is receivedfrom the email address associated with the conversation, the messagingservice may generate a message based on the email and send the messageto the messaging applications (e.g., messaging applications 240)associated with the participants of the conversation for display of themessage generated based on the email. On the other hand, in response todetermining that the email is not from the email address associated withconversation, the messaging service will disregard the email and/or sendback a notification that it is prohibited from sending email to thereturn email address corresponding to the conversation.

FIG. 21 shows an example UI 2100 of the messaging application (e.g.,messaging application 240). The UI 2100 may include the conversation2101. The conversation 2101 may include an input field 2102. User inputsmay be received via the input field 2102. Example input 2104 addressedto the email participant includes a content: “Hi, external User F.” Theexample input (i.e., message in the conversation 2101) 2104 includes anemail address: UserF@gmail.com. The email address and the content may beentered in the input field 2102.

At 2009, the chat service 222 finds existing participants in theconversation. The existing participants may be users of the messagingservice and/or existing external emails users. The chat service 222finds the participants based on the conversation metadata. To that end,the chat service 222 finds the participants by querying the userdatabase 234 for users who are associated with the conversation and theemail user database 237 for users who are participants. After receivingan indication that an email participant has been added to theconversation, subsequent messages may be added to the conversation andemail messages are generated and sent to the email address associatedwith the email participant A as explained more fully below.

In some embodiments, the messaging service 220 may generate an emailmessage upon receiving a message in the conversation comprisinginformation identifying the email participant A (e.g., the email addressassociate with email participant A). The email message is generated inaccordance with an email protocol associated with the email service 254.The generated email message contains at least a subset of the receivedmessage and the email address. In some embodiment, the generated emailmessage may further comprise a return email address generated by themessaging service 220 and corresponding to the conversation. In furtherexamples, the messaging service 220 may generate a plurality of returnemail addresses corresponding to a plurality of conversations,respectively. The generated email message may be sent by the messagingservice 220 (e.g., the email service 254) to an external email serviceassociated with the email address for delivery to the email inbox of theemail participant A. In other embodiments, the external emailparticipant receives a single subsequent message or at least a subset ofthe subsequent messages. In yet other embodiments, all subsequentmessages in the conversation are sent to the external email participantA.

The chat service 222 sends the new message along with an indication ofthe participants of the conversation to push service 224 of themessaging application. At 2011, the push service 224 notifies existingparticipants of the message containing the external email address.Notifying the existing participants may include sending the messageand/or an indication of the email address to the participants of theconversation. Notifying the existing participants may include causingthe message and/or the email address to be displayed in theconversation.

The push service 224 may send an indication of the message to the emailservice 254 of the messaging application. The email service 254 may be aservice that is part of the messaging service. In embodiments, the emailservice 254 formats the one or more messages into the form of an emailaccording to an email protocol such as SMTP. As such, the email servicemay add the external email address associated with the email participantA to a header field of the generated email message and adds the messagecontent to the body of the generated email message. Additionally, inembodiments, the email service 254 adds information in the email messageindicative of the conversation from the message content originated, suchas a return email address corresponding to the conversation andgenerated by the messaging service 220.

In particular, replies to the email message that are received by themessaging service by way, e.g., of the email service 254 compriseinformation indicative of an association the conversation (e.g., thereturn email address corresponding to the conversation). Informationassociated with the replies may be pushed to messaging applicationsassociated with the participants of the conversation for display of atleast a content of the replies to the email message. Consequently,information (e.g., return email address corresponding to theconversation) added to the email message and also included in any replyto the email message facilitate identifying the correspondingconversation so as to push information associated with the reply to theemail message to messaging applications associated with the participantsof the conversation.

As described above, one example for this association is that themessaging service 220 (e.g., the email service 254) generates acorresponding return email address associated with each conversation. Bythe way of example and without any limitation, the generated returnemail may comprise at least a partially randomized text string. Forexample, as shown in FIG. 22 , the messaging service sent an email tothe UserF@gmail.com 2220 email participant with the return email addresscalendar-kZNnYBkbywE@feishugroups.com 2221. That return email address isassociated with the particular conversation that originated the messageto be sent to the external email address 2220 as illustrated in FIG. 21. That return email address 2221 is added to the email header in thefrom field of the email message. Replies to the return email address2221 can then be used by the messaging service (e.g., messaging service220) to associate the reply email with a particular conversation.

Techniques may be used to prevent spoofing the messaging service withreply email and junk email. For example, the return email address may begenerated by a form of a random email address generator. In the presentexample, the return email address 2221 contains “kZNnYBkbywE” which israndomly selected and not easily predicted or spoofed. Consequently, itassists to reduce conversations from receiving unwanted SPAM. In otherexamples, the email header may contain specific information that areused to identify a conversation such as in the subject line or in otherheader fields. Such identifiers may contain random or difficult topredict character sequences that may be used by the messaging service toassist in the prevention or control of SPAM. Any or all of the abovedescribed data may be stored in a database such as the email messagedatabase 238 for later association and classification of reply emailmessages.

Consequently, at 2013, the email service 254 may send the formattedemail message to the email address associated with the email participantAs. Sending the email message to the email address may include sendingthe email message to a domain associated with the email address. Asnoted, sending the email message to the email address may includesending other information from the conversation to the email address.FIG. 22 , illustrates that the email message was received by the emailparticipant, e.g., UserF@gmail.com 2220. The email participantthereafter has prepared a reply email 2222 including the text “Hi,there. I am happy!” and sends the rely email 2222 to the return emailaddress associated with the messaging service and corresponding to theparticular conversation.

The email service 254 may receive a reply to the message from the emailaddress. The reply may be received by the email service 254 at thegenerated return email address corresponding to the conversation. Theemail service 254, e.g., using information contained in the reply email,will associate the return email address with the correspondingconversation such as by querying the databases 260 (e.g., email messagedatabase 238) and determining the conversation to which the reply to theemail message is associated. In an embodiment, the messaging service 220(e.g., email service 254) formats the reply into the form of a messageand sends the message to the push service 224 by way of chat service222. The push service 224 may then send the message corresponding to thereply to the messaging applications associated with the participants inthe conversation. In some embodiments, a conversation may comprise otheremail participants (e.g., email participant B) in addition to the emailparticipant A. In that case, the messaging service 220 may furthergenerate an email message based on the message formatted by themessaging service 220 and corresponding to the reply from the emailparticipant A; and the messaging service 220 then sends the generatedemail message to the other email participants (e.g., email participantB).

FIG. 23 shows an example UI 2300 of the messaging application (e.g.,messaging application 240). The UI 2300 may be the same or similar tothe UI 2100 in FIG. 21 . The UI 2300 includes a continuation ofconversation from FIG. 21 . Based on receiving the reply email 2222 fromthe email address and the external email system (e.g., external emailsystem 2200 in FIG. 22 ), the messaging service (e.g., messaging service220) may generate a message, and add the message to the conversation,and send the message to the messaging applications associated with theparticipants of the conversation for display of the message 2304 thatcorresponds to the reply email 2222. In the example shown, the externalemail address UserF@email.com is displayed with the message 2304. Othermetadata, such as a time that the message was sent to the messagingapplication associated with the participants of the conversation mayalso be displayed.

In some embodiments, the messaging application 240 may receiveinformation entered by a user in a conversation. The information maycomprise an email address and content to be sent to the email address.The messaging application 240 may then send the information to themessaging service 220. Upon receiving the information, the messagingservice 220 may send an identifier for identifying the conversation andthe content to an email service external to the messaging service 220and associated with the email address. In other embodiments, themessaging service 220 may receive an email from the external emailservice. In that case, the messaging service 220 may determine that theemail is associated with the conversation based on a determination thatthe email comprises the identifier for identifying the conversation. Themessaging service 220 may then generate a message comprising content ofthe email and send the generated message to the messaging applications240 for display of the generated message.

FIG. 24 illustrates an example process 2400 performed by a messagingapplication (e.g., messaging application 240) in accordance with thepresent disclosure. Although depicted as a sequence of operations, thoseof ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various embodimentsmay add, remove, reorder, or modify the depicted operations.

At 2402, the messaging application 240 starts to operate on a device(e.g., user device 242) associated with a user of a messaging service(e.g., messaging service 220). At 2404, the messaging application 240sends to the messaging service 220 a request for information associatedwith conversations (i.e., message threads) in which the user isinvolved. In some embodiments, the requested information comprisesmetadata associated with the conversation, e.g., a thread identification(ID) corresponding to each of the conversations. The requestedinformation further comprises information indicative of attributesassociated with the conversations, such as topics, users, groups, tasks,etc. associated with the conversations. In other embodiments, therequested information may further comprise data indicative of summariesof the conversations, e.g., a subset of messages of each conversation.In an example the subset of messages of each conversation may be aninitial message and a last message in the conversation.

At 2406, the messaging application 240 receives the requestedinformation and stores the requested information locally, e.g., withinthe user device 242. In some embodiments, the received information,including thread IDs and attributes of the conversation, may be storedin a local storage, e.g., browser cache. In other embodiments, thethread IDs and attributes of the conversations may be stored in a localdatabase. At 2408, the message application 240 displays indicators ofthe conversations. The indicators of the conversations may comprisetopics prefaced by a predetermined character (e.g., a hashtag #)associated with the conversations. The indicators of the conversationsmay also comprise users or groups prefaced by another predeterminedcharacter (e.g., an @ sign) associated with the conversations. Theindicators of the conversation may further comprise summaries of theconversations.

FIG. 25 illustrates an example user interface (UI) 2500 of the messagingapplication 240. In this example, indicators of the conversationscategorized by topics (e.g., “patent” 2502) and categorized by users(e.g., “UserA” 2503) or groups (e.g., “Group1” 2504) are displayed inthe leftmost column 2506. Summaries of the conversations are displayedin the area 2508 next to the leftmost column 2506. Task attributes ofthe conversations may also be displayed together with the summaries ofthe conversations. For instance, as shown in FIG. 25 , the status oftask 2512 and a change to the task due date 2514 are displayed togetherwith the summaries 2516 and 2518, respectively. It should be appreciatedthat the UI 2500 in FIG. 25 is merely illustrative and other displayarrangements might be utilized.

Referring back to FIG. 24 , the messaging application 240 may receive auser input indicative of a selection of an indicator or summary of aconversation among the plurality of conversations. Upon receiving theuser input, the messaging application 240 sends to the messaging servicea request for the messages in the selected conversation at 2410. Therequest comprises the thread ID of the selected conversation. At 2412,the messaging application 240 receives the messages of the selectedconversation and displays the messages of the selected conversation. Byway of example and without limitation, the messages of the selectedconversation may be displayed in the rightmost area 2520 of the UI 2500of the messaging application as shown in FIG. 25 . In an example, themessaging application 240 may send a request for a plurality of messagesin a conversation selected from a plurality of conversations withsummaries. The message application 240 may then display content receivedin response to the request, wherein the content is associated with theplurality of messages in the selected conversation.

FIG. 26 illustrates another example process 2600 performed by amessaging application (e.g., messaging application 240) in accordancewith the present disclosure. Although depicted as a sequence ofoperations, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate thatvarious embodiments may add, remove, reorder, or modify the depictedoperations.

At 2602, the messaging application 240 receives input indicative ofstarting a new conversation. For example, a user may select the “NewConversation” button 2526 in the UI 2500 as shown in FIG. 25 to start anew conversation. In some embodiments, the messaging application 240 maygenerate a thread ID for the new conversation. In other embodiments, thethread ID for a new conversation may be generated by the messagingservice 220 upon receiving information indicative of the newconversation sent from the messaging application 240.

At 2604, the messaging application 240 receives another input from auser. In some embodiments, the user input may be entered via a window2702 and 2802 as shown in FIGS. 27 and 28 . In response to the userinput indicative of starting a new conversation, the messagingapplication 240 may cause a user device (e.g., user device 242) todisplay the window 2702 overlaid on a UI 2700 as shown in FIG. 27 . Thewindow comprises a plurality of selectable interface elements.

The window 2702 comprises representative symbols (e.g., @ symbol 2704,#symbol 2706, and calendar icon 2708) corresponding to attributes to beassociated with the new conversation. In an example, a use may selectthe @ symbol 2704 to add one or more participants (e.g., UserA 2706 andGroup1 2708) to the new conversation. In another example, a user mayselect the #symbol 2706 to add one or more topics (e.g., topic “backlog”2710) to the new conversation. The one or more topics may be anyexisting topics listed on the leftmost column of the UI 2700. In theexample, the existing topic “backlog” 2710 is selected and added to thenew conversation. In another example, upon selecting the calendar icon2708, a calendar UI 2806 with selectable dates is displayed, as shown inFIG. 28 . In this example, a user selects a due date of Jul. 17, 2020for a task assigned to a participant. Information indicative of the taskmay be typed into an input field 2808 of the window 2802.

In other embodiments, the messaging application 240 may receive dataindicative of a message entered by a user. The message may be entered ina new or existing conversation by the user, such as via an input area2522 of the UI 2500 as shown in FIG. 25 .

At 2606, the messaging application 240 may determine that the user inputcomprises information indicative of one or more attributes associatedwith the conversation. The messaging application 240 may determine thatthe user input is indicative of at least one attribute based on adetermination that the input is associated with a predeterminedcharacter. For example, the messaging application 240 may determine thatthe user input comprises information indicative of an attribute (e.g.,topic, user or group) based on identifying a predetermined character(e.g., #, @, or any other predetermined characters). Each predeterminedcharacter (or characters) may denote an attribute, such as a topic, auser or a group. In other embodiments, the messaging service 220 maydetermine whether the user input comprises one or more attributesassociated with the conversation upon receiving information from themessaging application 240.

In an example, a text string prefaced by the #symbol is determined as atopic associated with the conversation. In another example, a textstring prefaced by the @ symbol is determined as a user or group invitedto the conversation. In a further example, the messaging application 240or the messaging service 220 may recognize a structure of an emailaddress, e.g., text string (mailbox)+@+domain, to determine that theuser input comprises an email address associated with the conversation.

At 2608, the messaging application 240 sends information indicative ofat least one attribute associated with the conversation to the messagingservice 220. Upon receiving the information indicative of the attribute,the messaging service 220 stores the attribute to a correspondingattribute database associated with a thread ID of the conversation. Theattribute may be a topic, a user or group, an email address, etc.associated with the conversation. In some embodiments where the userinput is provided by entering a message, the messaging application 240may also send a content of the message and metadata associated with themessage to the messaging service 220. The content of the message may betext, image, video, or audio content. The metadata may comprise a userID (for the user who created the message), a timestamp indicating a timethat the message was created, and so on. Upon receiving the content, andmetadata of the message, the messaging service 220 stores the contentand metadata of the message to the conversation (message thread)database 230.

FIG. 29 illustrates another example process 2900 performed by amessaging application (e.g., messaging application 240) in accordancewith the present disclosure. Although depicted as a sequence ofoperations, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate thatvarious embodiments may add, remove, reorder, or modify the depictedoperations.

At 2902, the messaging application 240 receives input from a user. In anexample, the user input may be provided by selecting the “Operator”option 2526 in the UI 2500 as shown in FIG. 25 . At 2904, in response tothe user input, the messaging application 240 generates an interfacebased on the attributes of the conversations in which the user isinvolved. At 2906, the messaging application 240 further displays theinterface by which the user can rank the attributes of the conversationsbased on their priorities.

Unlike conventional messaging systems that organize messages in a singledimension, such as by timing of the messages, the messaging service 220and/or the messaging application 240 in accordance with the presentdisclosure may organize conversations in multiple dimensions.Optionally, the messaging application 240 may generate an interfacecomprising a two-dimensional representation associated with a pluralityof conversations. The two dimensions in the two-dimensionalrepresentation are based on a first attribute associated with theplurality of conversations and a second attribute associated with theplurality of conversations. The messaging device may display theinterface by which a user may provide input indicative of reorganizingthe attributes associated with plurality of the conversations. Themessaging device may reorganize the two-dimensional representation inresponse to receiving the input.

By way of example and without limitation, FIG. 30 illustrates aninterface 3000 comprising a two-dimensional table 3002. Thetwo-dimensional table 3002 comprises a vertical axis 3004 and ahorizontal axis 3006. In an example, the vertical axis 3004 may list allor a subset of the topics associated with the conversations in which theuser is involved; the horizontal axis 3006 may list all or a subset ofthe users or groups (e.g., that have been mentioned in the conversationsand prefaced by the @ symbol, i.e., “Mentions”) with whom the user hasconversations. In another example, the vertical axis may list all orsome of the users or groups with whom the user has conversations and thehorizontal axis may list all or some of the topics associated with theconversations in which the user is involved.

The user may reorganize the two-dimensional table 3002 by dragging aparticular topic listed in the vertical axis 3004 or a particularMention listed in the horizontal axis 3006 and dropping the particulartopic or Mention at a different row or a different column. In anexample, the two-dimensional table 3002 may be reorganized by themessaging application 240 based on the priorities of the attributesassociated with the conversations. The topics listed in the verticalaxis 3004 and/or the Mentions listed in the horizontal axis 3006 may beorganized and displayed in any manner to reflect their respectivepriorities. By way of example and without limitation, the most importantattributes may be moved to the top-left corner of the two-dimensionaltable 3002. In an example, the user may drag a topic that is the mostimportant to the user (e.g., topic “bugs”) and drop the topic “bugs” atthe top of the vertical axis 3004. Similarly, the user may drag aMention that is most important to the user (e.g., Mention “Boss”) anddrop the Mention “Boss” at the leftmost cell of the horizontal axis3006. The two-dimensional table 3002 may comprise a leftmost column 3008and a top row 3010 with a change of greyscale or colors indicating adecrease of the importance of the attributes listed from top to bottomand from left to right, respectively. In another embodiment, the mostimportant attributes may be moved to the bottom-right corner of thetwo-dimensional table 3002. The leftmost column 3008 and the top row3010 with a change of greyscale or colors may indicate an increase ofthe importance of the attributes listed from top to bottom and from leftto right, respectively

The two-dimensional table 3002 comprises a plurality of cells(intersections) defined by columns and rows of the table 3002. Each cellin the two-dimensional table 3002 is a selectable button by which theconversations can be filtered based on the corresponding attributes,e.g., topic and Mention attributes. Each of the plurality ofintersections is associated with one or more conversations having thecorresponding attributes. In an example, a number of unreadconversations may be displayed in a cell of the two-dimensional table3002. For instance, the number “2” 3012 is displayed in the cell 3014,which indicates that there are two conversations with unread messagesamong the conversations having the corresponding attributes (i.e.,Topic1 3016 and UserA 3018). In another example, different cells mayhave different colors or any other suitable indicators. Different colorsor other indicators included in cells may be indicative of differentstatus of tasks associated with conversations having the correspondingattributes.

In some embodiment, the UI 3000 may comprise an “Enable” button 3019which can toggle between enable and disable states of the “Operator”option 2526. In other embodiments, the UI 3000 may further compriseslidable buttons 3018, 3020, 3022 for toggling between enable or disablestates of attributes, e.g., topic (e.g., hashtag) attribute, Mentionattribute, and task status attribute. When either the topic attribute orMention attribute is disabled, the UI 3000 will comprise aone-dimensional table instead of the two-dimensional table 3002. If thetask status attribute is disable, the two-dimensional table 3002 willnot indicate status of tasks by different colors or other means.

Referring back to FIG. 29 , the messaging application 240 may overlay asize-reduced two-dimensional representation on another user interface at2908. The two-dimensional table 3002 as shown in FIG. 30 presents theuser useful information and attributes associated with the conversationsand allows the user to reorganize the attributes of the conversations.However, the two-dimensional table 3002 may be relatively large, takingup too much screen space. Hence, the messaging application 240 mayprovide a size-reduced version of the two-dimensional table 3002 inresponse to a user input. The user input may be provided by selecting anicon 2530 as shown in FIG. 25 .

FIG. 31 illustrates a size-reduced version 3102 of the two-dimensionaltable 3002. As shown in FIG. 31 , the size-reduced table 3102 isoverlaid on another user interface 3104. Like the two-dimensional table3002, the size-reduced table 3102 may comprise a number indicatingunread conversations in a cell. The size-reduced table 3102 may alsohave different colors in different cells indicative of different statusof associated tasks. Similar to the cells in the two-dimensional table3002, each cell in the size-reduced table 3102 is also a selectablebutton by which the conversations can be filtered based on thecorresponding topic and Mention attributes. The size-reducedtwo-dimensional table allows the table to be overlaid on a UI so thatthe user can reference the table while using the UI. The reduced sizecan be predetermined based on screen size or defined by a user, e.g., byselecting and resizing the table directly or by entering size dimensionsinto a form.

Referring back to FIG. 29 , the messaging application 240 receivesinformation indicative of a selection of an intersection in thetwo-dimensional representation at 2910. In an example, the user mayselect a cell in the two-dimensional table 3002 as shown in FIG. 30 . Inanother example, the user may select a cell in the size-reduced table3102 as shown in FIG. 31 . At 2912, the messaging application 240 mayfilter the conversations in response to a selection of a cell in eitherthe two-dimensional table 3002 or the size-reduced table 3102. Theconversations are filtered by the messaging application based on theparticular attributes corresponding to the selected cell. For example,in response to a selection of the cell 3036 in the two-dimensional table3002 or the cell 3106 in the size-reduced table 3102, the messagingapplication 240 filters the conversations based on the correspondingattributes, i.e., the topic “bugs” and the Mention “Boss.” FIG. 32illustrates the filtered results. By way of example and withoutlimitation, summaries 3206, 3208, 3210, and 3212 of the conversationshaving the attributes of the topic “bugs” 3202 and the Mention “Boss”3204 are displayed in the UI 3200.

The above described aspects of the disclosure have been described withregard to certain examples and embodiments, which are intended toillustrate but not to limit the disclosure. It should be appreciatedthat the subject matter presented herein may be implemented as acomputer process, a computer-controlled apparatus or a computing systemor an article of manufacture, such as a computer-readable storagemedium.

Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that the subject matterdescribed herein may be practiced on or in conjunction with othercomputer system configurations beyond those described herein, includingmultiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumerelectronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers, handheld computers,personal digital assistants, e-readers, cellular telephone devices,special-purposed hardware devices, network appliances, and the like. Theembodiments described herein may also be practiced in distributedcomputing environments, where tasks are performed by remote processingdevices that are linked through a communications network. In adistributed computing environment, program modules may be located inboth local and remote memory storage devices.

A network set up by an entity, such as a company or a public sectororganization, to provide one or more services accessible via theInternet and/or other networks to a distributed set of clients may betermed a provider network. Such a provider network may include numerousdata centers hosting various resource pools, such as collections ofphysical and/or virtualized computer servers, storage devices,networking equipment, and the like, needed to implement and distributethe infrastructure and services offered by the provider network. Theresources may in some embodiments be offered to clients in units calledinstances, such as virtual or physical computing instances or storageinstances. A virtual computing instance may, for example, comprise oneor more servers with a specified computational capacity (which may bespecified by indicating the type and number of CPUs, the main memorysize, and so on) and a specified software stack (e.g., a particularversion of an operating system, which may in turn run on top of ahypervisor).

A number of different types of computing devices may be used singly orin combination to implement the resources and services in differentembodiments, including general-purpose or special-purpose computerservers, storage devices, network devices, and the like. In at leastsome embodiments, a server or computing device that implements at leasta portion of one or more of the technologies described herein, includingthe techniques to implement the functionality of the messaging service220 and the messaging application 240 may include a general-purposecomputer system that includes or is configured to access one or moredatabases and/or computer-accessible media.

FIG. 33 shows such a general-purpose computing device 3300. Thecomputing device 3300 may operate in a virtual environment, such as theenvironment 100 in FIG. 1 . Computing device 3300 may be used to hostthe messaging service or the messaging application. Computing device3300 may be configured to communicate with devices of users of themessaging application. Computing device 3300 may be a general-purposecomputing device. Computing device 3300 may be an on-premises device,such as a node of a distributed system running in a user's data center.The components of computing device 3300 may include, but are not limitedto, one or more processors or processing units 3316, a system memory3328, and a bus 3318 that couples various system components includingsystem memory 3328 to processor 3316.

The bus 3318 in the example of FIG. 33 represents one or more of any ofseveral types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memorycontroller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and aprocessor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Byway of example, and not limitation, such architectures include IndustryStandard Architecture (‘ISA’) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (‘MCA’)bus, Enhanced ISA (‘EISA’) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association(‘VESA’) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnects (‘PCI’) bus.

Computing device 3300 may include a variety of computer system readablemedia. Such media may be any available media that is accessible bycomputing device 3300, and it includes both volatile and non-volatilemedia, removable and non-removable media. Computing device 3300 mayinclude system memory 3328, which may include computer system readablemedia in the form of volatile memory, such as random access memory(‘RAM’) 3330 and/or cache memory 3332. Computing device 3300 may furtherinclude other removable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computersystem storage media. By way of example only, a storage system 3334 maybe provided for reading from and writing to a non-removable,non-volatile magnetic media (not shown and typically called a “harddrive”). Although not shown, a magnetic disk drive for reading from andwriting to a removable, non-volatile magnetic disk, e.g., a “floppydisk,” and an optical disk drive for reading from or writing to aremovable, non-volatile optical disk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or otheroptical media may be provided. In such instances, each may be connectedto bus 3318 by one or more data media interfaces. As will be furtherdepicted and described below, memory 3328 may include at least oneprogram product having a set, e.g., at least one, of program modulesthat are configured to carry out the functions of embodiments of theinvention.

Computing device 3300 may include a program/utility 3340 having a set(at least one) of program modules 3342 that may be stored in memory3328. Computing device 3300 of FIG. 33 may also include an operatingsystem, one or more messaging application programs, other messagingapplication program modules, and messaging application program data.Each of the operating system, one or more messaging applicationprograms, other messaging application program modules, and messagingapplication program data or some combination thereof, may include animplementation of a networking environment, such as the cloud computingsystem 100 in FIG. 1 . Program modules 3342 generally carry out thefunctions and/or methodologies of embodiments of the invention asdescribed herein.

Computing device 3300 of FIG. 33 may also communicate with one or moreexternal devices 3314 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display3324, and so on that enable a user to interact with computing device3300. Computing device 3300 may also include any devices, e.g., networkcard, modem, etc., that enable computing device 3300 to communicate withone or more other computing devices. Such communication may occur, forexample, via I/O interfaces 3321. Still yet, computing device 3300 maycommunicate with one or more networks such as a local area network(‘LAN’), a general wide area network (‘WAN’), and/or a public network,e.g., the Internet, via network adapter 3320. As depicted, networkadapter 3320 communicates with the other components of computing device3300 via bus 3318. It should be understood that although not shown,other hardware and/or software components could be used in conjunctionwith computing device 3300. Examples include, but are not limited to,microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external diskdrive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storagesystems, and so on.

Each of the processes, methods, and algorithms described in thepreceding sections may be embodied in, and fully or partially automatedby, code modules executed by one or more computers or computerprocessors. The code modules may be stored on any type of non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or computer storage device, such as harddrives, solid state memory, optical disc, and/or the like. The processesand algorithms may be implemented partially or wholly inapplication-specific circuitry. The results of the disclosed processesand process steps may be stored, persistently or otherwise, in any typeof non-transitory computer storage such as, e.g., volatile ornon-volatile storage.

The various features and processes described above may be usedindependently of one another, or may be combined in various ways. Allpossible combinations and sub-combinations are intended to fall withinthe scope of this disclosure. In addition, certain method or processblocks may be omitted in some implementations. The methods and processesdescribed herein are also not limited to any particular sequence, andthe blocks or states relating thereto can be performed in othersequences that are appropriate. For example, described blocks or statesmay be performed in an order other than that specifically disclosed, ormultiple blocks or states may be combined in a single block or state.The example blocks or states may be performed in serial, in parallel orin some other manner. Blocks or states may be added to or removed fromthe disclosed example embodiments. The example systems and componentsdescribed herein may be configured differently than described. Forexample, elements may be added to, removed from, or rearranged comparedto the disclosed example embodiments.

It will also be appreciated that various items are illustrated as beingstored in memory or on storage while being used, and that these items orportions of thereof may be transferred between memory and other storagedevices for purposes of memory management and data integrity.Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the software modulesand/or systems may execute in memory on another device and communicatewith the illustrated computing systems via inter-computer communication.Furthermore, in some embodiments, some or all of the systems and/ormodules may be implemented or provided in other ways, such as at leastpartially in firmware and/or hardware, including, but not limited to,one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), standardintegrated circuits, controllers (e.g., by executing appropriateinstructions, and including microcontrollers and/or embeddedcontrollers), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complexprogrammable logic devices (CPLDs), etc. Some or all of the modules,systems and data structures may also be stored (e.g., as softwareinstructions or structured data) on a computer-readable medium, such asa hard disk, a memory, a network, or a portable media article to be readby an appropriate drive or via an appropriate connection. The systems,modules, and data structures may also be transmitted as generated datasignals (e.g., as part of a carrier wave or other analog or digitalpropagated signal) on a variety of computer-readable transmission media,including wireless-based and wired/cable-based media, and may take avariety of forms (e.g., as part of a single or multiplexed analogsignal, or as multiple discrete digital packets or frames). Suchcomputer program products may also take other forms in otherembodiments. Accordingly, the present invention may be practiced withother computer system configurations.

Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “could,”“might,” “may,” “e.g.,” and the like, unless specifically statedotherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, isgenerally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, whileother embodiments do not include, certain features, elements, and/orsteps. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended toimply that features, elements, and/or steps are in any way required forone or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarilyinclude logic for deciding, with or without author input or prompting,whether these features, elements, and/or steps are included or are to beperformed in any particular embodiment. The terms “comprising,”“including,” “having,” and the like are synonymous and are usedinclusively, in an open-ended fashion, and do not exclude additionalelements, features, acts, operations, and so forth. Also, the term “or”is used in its inclusive sense (and not in its exclusive sense) so thatwhen used, for example, to connect a list of elements, the term “or”means one, some, or all of the elements in the list.

While certain example embodiments have been described, these embodimentshave been presented by way of example only, and are not intended tolimit the scope of the inventions disclosed herein. Thus, nothing in theforegoing description is intended to imply that any particular feature,characteristic, step, module, or block is necessary or indispensable.Indeed, the novel methods and systems described herein may be embodiedin a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions,substitutions and changes in the form of the methods and systemsdescribed herein may be made without departing from the spirit of theinventions disclosed herein. The accompanying claims and theirequivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as wouldfall within the scope and spirit of certain of the inventions disclosedherein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A conversation-based messaging method,comprising: generating a thread identifier (ID) corresponding to a newconversation based on receiving a user input indicative of starting thenew conversation, wherein the user input is received from a user via apredetermined interface element on a user interface; displaying a windowin response to receiving the user input via the predetermined interfaceelement, wherein the window comprises a plurality of representativeelements corresponding to a plurality of types of conversationattribute, and wherein the plurality representative elements represent atopic type of attribute, a user type of attribute, and a task type ofattribute; and creating one or more attributes of the new conversationbased at least in part on selecting one or more representative elementsamong the plurality of representative elements displayed in the window,wherein the creating one or more attributes of the new conversationfurther comprises associating the one or more attributes with the threadID of the first conversation.
 2. The conversation-based messaging methodof claim 1, wherein the creating one or more attributes of the newconversation further comprises: adding one or more participants to thenew conversation based on selecting one of the plurality ofrepresentative elements representing a user type of attribute, whereinthe one or more participants of the new conversation comprise anindividual user or a group user, and wherein the group user comprise aplurality of individual users.
 3. The conversation-based messagingmethod of claim 1, wherein the creating one or more attributes of thenew conversation further comprises: adding one or more topics to the newconversation based on selecting one of the plurality of representativeelements representing a topic type of attribute.
 4. Theconversation-based messaging method of claim 1, wherein the creating oneor more attributes of the new conversation further comprises: displayinga calendar comprising selectable dates for selecting a due date of atask in response to selecting one of the plurality of representativeelements representing a task type of attribute; and creating the taskassociated with the new conversation based on the due date andinformation received via an input field comprised in the window.
 5. Theconversation-based messaging method of claim 1, further comprising:creating another attribute of the new conversation based on parsingcontent of a message entered via an input area of the user interface,wherein the another attribute of the new conversation comprises a topicattribute, a user attribute, a group attribute, a task attribute, or anemail message attribute.
 6. The conversation-based messaging method ofclaim 1, further comprising: recognizing a structure of an email addressbased on parsing content of a message entered via an input area of theuser interface; and adding an external entity corresponding to the emailaddress as a participant of the new conversation by associating theemail address with the thread ID of the new conversation.
 7. Theconversation-based messaging method of claim 1, further comprising:displaying a plurality of indicators associated with a plurality ofconversations of which the user is a participant on the user interface.8. The conversation-based messaging method of claim 7, furthercomprising: sending a request for a plurality of messages in aparticular conversation in response to selecting one of the plurality ofindicators corresponding to the particular conversation; and displayingcontent received in response to the request, the content associated withthe plurality of messages in the particular conversation.
 9. Theconversation-based messaging method of claim 1, further comprising:generating an interface comprising a two-dimensional representationbased on attributes of a plurality of conversations of which the user isa participant; and displaying the interface comprising thetwo-dimensional representation, wherein the interface is configured toenable the user to reorganize the attributes of the plurality ofconversations.
 10. The conversation-based messaging method of claim 9,further comprising: receiving information indicative of a selection ofan intersection in the two-dimensional representation; and filtering theplurality of conversations in response to receiving the informationbased on attributes corresponding to the selected intersection.
 11. Acomputing system, comprising: at least one processor; and at least onememory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor and storinginstructions that upon execution by the at least one processor cause theat least one processor to perform operations comprising: generating athread identifier (ID) corresponding to a new conversation based onreceiving a user input indicative of starting the new conversation,wherein the user input is received from a user via a predeterminedinterface element on a user interface; displaying a window in responseto receiving the user input via the predetermined interface element,wherein the window comprises a plurality of representative elementscorresponding to a plurality of types of conversation attribute, andwherein the plurality representative elements represent a topic type ofattribute, a user type of attribute, and a task type of attribute; andcreating one or more attributes of the new conversation based at leastin part on selecting one or more representative elements among theplurality of representative elements displayed in the window, whereinthe creating one or more attributes of the new conversation furthercomprises associating the one or more attributes with the thread ID ofthe first conversation.
 12. The computing system of claim 11, whereinthe creating one or more attributes of the new conversation furthercomprises at least one of: adding one or more participants to the newconversation based on selecting one of the plurality of representativeelements representing a user type of attribute, wherein the one or moreparticipants of the new conversation comprise an individual user or agroup user, and wherein the group user comprise a plurality ofindividual users; or adding one or more topics to the new conversationbased on selecting one of the plurality of representative elementsrepresenting a topic type of attribute.
 13. The computing system ofclaim 11, wherein the creating one or more attributes of the newconversation further comprises: displaying a calendar comprisingselectable dates for selecting a due date of a task in response toselecting one of the plurality of representative elements representing atask type of attribute; and creating the task associated with the newconversation based on the due date and information received via an inputfield comprised in the window.
 14. The computing system of claim 11, theoperations further comprising: creating another attribute of the newconversation based on parsing content of a message entered via an inputarea of the user interface, wherein the another attribute of the newconversation comprises a topic attribute, a user attribute, a groupattribute, a task attribute, or an email message attribute.
 15. Thecomputing system of claim 11, the operations further comprising:recognizing a structure of an email address based on parsing content ofa message entered via an input area of the user interface; and adding anexternal entity corresponding to the email address as a participant ofthe new conversation by associating the email address with the thread IDof the new conversation.
 16. The computing system of claim 11, theoperations further comprising: displaying a plurality of indicatorsassociated with a plurality of conversations of which the user is aparticipant on the user interface; sending a request for a plurality ofmessages in a particular conversation in response to selecting one ofthe plurality of indicators corresponding to the particularconversation; and displaying content received in response to therequest, the content associated with the plurality of messages in theparticular conversation.
 17. The computing system of claim 11, theoperations further comprising: generating an interface comprising atwo-dimensional representation based on attributes associated with aplurality of conversations of which the user is a participant; anddisplaying the interface comprising the two-dimensional representation,wherein the interface is configured to enable the user to reorganize theattributes associated with the plurality of conversations.
 18. Thecomputing system of claim 17, the operations further comprising:receiving information indicative of a selection of an intersection inthe two-dimensional representation; and filtering the plurality ofconversations in response to receiving the information based onattributes corresponding to the selected intersection.
 19. Anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium, storingcomputer-readable instructions that upon execution on a computing devicecause the computing device to perform operations comprising: generatinga thread identifier (ID) corresponding to a new conversation based onreceiving a user input indicative of starting the new conversation,wherein the user input is received from a user via a predeterminedinterface element on a user interface; displaying a window in responseto receiving the user input via the predetermined interface element,wherein the window comprises a plurality of representative elementscorresponding to a plurality of types of conversation attribute, andwherein the plurality representative elements represent a topic type ofattribute, a user type of attribute, and a task type of attribute; andcreating one or more attributes of the new conversation based at leastin part on selecting one or more representative elements among theplurality of representative elements displayed in the window, whereinthe creating one or more attributes of the new conversation furthercomprises associating the one or more attributes with the thread ID ofthe first conversation.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 19, wherein the creating one or more attributes of thenew conversation further comprises at least one of: adding one or moreparticipants to the new conversation based on selecting one of theplurality of representative elements representing a user type ofattribute, wherein the one or more participants of the new conversationcomprise an individual user or a group user, and wherein the group usercomprise a plurality of individual users; adding one or more topics tothe new conversation based on selecting one of the plurality ofrepresentative elements representing a topic type of attribute; orcreating a task associated with the new conversation based on a due dateselected via a calendar overlaid on the user interface and informationreceived via an input field in the window.